“Swamp Thing” To Be A Hard R And Practical
“Titans” is the first of the three commissioned live-action series for the DC Universe streaming service and has been in production for many months ahead of its debut on October 12th. “Doom Patrol” recently kicked off filming and is looking likely to have an early 2019 debut.
Lagging behind, but still very much on the way, is the new series adaptation of “Swamp Thing” which is still in the midst of casting ahead of filming beginning in the Fall. Writer Gary Dauberman (“The Nun,” “IT”) is working on the series alongside filmmakers James Wan (“The Conjuring”) and Len Wiseman (“Live Free or Die Hard”) and spoke with
Slashfilm this week about their aims for the series.
First up, the creature itself which he confirms is a physical costume and says: “it’s going to look amazing and less of the ‘man in suit’ that you’ve seen in the movie and the other TV show”. That suggests a blend of practical and CG enhancement. He’s also made it very clear that Swamp Thing would have a hard R rating:
“We always set out to make Swamp Thing as hard R as we could and go graphic with the violence, with the adult themes and make it as scary as possible. Because we’re doing it through the DC streaming service, they really pushed us, although they didn’t have to push hard, for us to go as extreme as we could. We really took our inspiration from the Alan Moore run in Swamp Thing, this landmark I think run. Fans of that series will know it gets pretty weird and extreme and scary.”
The series certainly sounds like it’s aiming to match the tone of the comics. One thing it won’t be doing, at least not for now, is connecting itself with the other shows on the service. Dauberman says the opportunity is there but they’re not following through on it at this time:
“I think the opportunity is there if we want to [connect the series] but it’s not mandated. I think we could if, in the future, it organically works itself out to be that way. I haven’t discussed that with the guys from Titans and they haven’t discussed it with us.”
That’s in stark contrast to “Doom Patrol” which is using the fifth episode of “Titans” as a ‘backdoor pilot’ of sorts. No premiere date for the series has yet been set but it’s likely not until the late Spring or Summer next year.