Andy Bean & Derek Mears set to play Alec Holland & Swamp Thing in DC series

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

DC Universe's upcoming Swamp Thing TV series has been adding cast-members left and right lately, and the latest casting news concerns the big, green guy himself. It's been announced that Andy Bean (IT: CHAPTER TWO) will be stepping into the role of Dr. Alec Holland, a passionate biologist who comes to the realization that his work may be the cause of a deadly swamp-born virus which is affecting the townspeople. This discovery leads him to confront dark forces which swallow him up, but Holland emerges reborn as Swamp Thing, who will be played by Derek Mears (FRIDAY THE 13TH, which confirms the news from Splash Report back in September. Struggling to hold onto his humanity, ol' Swampy (can we call him that?) must learn to embrace what he's become and defend the town again the perils of the swamp.

Penned by Mark Verheiden and Gary Dauberman, the series will follow Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed) as she "investigates what seems to be a deadly swamp-born virus in a small town in Louisiana but soon discovers that the swamp holds mystical and terrifying secrets. When unexplainable and chilling horrors emerge from the murky marsh, no one is safe." In addition to Crystal Reed, Andy Bean, and Derek Mears, Swamp Thing will also star Jennifer Beals, Will Patton, Virginia Madsen, and Maria Sten. Co-writer Gary Dauberman has also said that the Swamp Thing suit will be a physical costume, which he claims looks incredible and will be "less of the 'man in suit' that you’ve seen in the movie and the other TV show."  Dauberman has also said that DC has been giving them a lot of creative freedom, even encouraging them to go as graphic as they want and push the series into hard R territory.

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. We really wanted to live up to that standard that Moore set up back in the ‘80s.