Guillermo del Toro officially off Justice League Dark; Hellboy 3 unlikely

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

At the end of last month, we heard a rumor that Guillermo del Toro might have vacated the director's chair on JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK, a superhero team-up film featuring characters of the "Dark Universe", ones with more of a horror slant to their stories and powers.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, del Toro has confirmed that he is indeed, unfortunately, no longer at the helm of JLD. The filmmaker is always developing multiple projects at once, and the reason why he had to walk away from this one is because its progress started to conflict with another movie he's working on.

del Toro says, 

“Warners liked the script, they were very enthusiastic and wanted to green-light it but they wanted it to coincide with the shoot of Pacific Rim 2. I was put in a very difficult place facing a difficult choice, and I chose to do Pacific Rim 2.”

That makes it sound like JLD could be kept on track with a different director taking over to film del Toro's script while he's off making his kaiju sequel. While it would have been great if the scheduling could have worked out for him to direct both films, we could still be getting a double dose of del Toro-scripted coolness.

The first volume of the JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK comic features the character The Enchantress as its villain. The Enchantress is being played by Cara Delevingne in David Ayer's SUICIDE SQUAD, I wonder if Delevigne would cross over into the JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK movie if/when it happens?

What may not be happening is the long-awaited HELLBOY 3, which del Toro feels is unlikely to get off the ground due to the $120 million budget it would require.

“It would be great to complete the trilogy. But in a way I don’t see the world – the industry – supporting that idea.”

That's some bad news in my book. Aside from the seemingly hopeless dream of AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS finally going forward with Tom Cruise in the lead, HELLBOY 3 is the del Toro project I most want to see.

What we can definitely look forward to is del Toro's gothic horror film CRIMSON PEAK, which will be in theatres on October 16th.

Cara Delevingne