J.J. Abrams likely won’t direct DC movies, wants next project to be original

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Back in 2019, J.J. Abrams made a multi-million dollar deal with WarnerMedia to develop all types of content for the company, which includes a Black Superman movie that will be penned by Ta-Nehisi Coates, but before you start thinking that Abrams will be helming his own DC movie anytime soon, you might want to keep your expectations in check.

When you look at J.J. Abrams' filmography, the only original project he's directed has been Super 8 as he's largely remained focused on revitalizing franchises such as Mission: Impossible, Star Trek, and Star Wars. While speaking with Collider, Abrams commented on developing DC projects for Warner Bros., but he does seem hungry to tackle more original ideas.

Well, I'll say that the opportunity to get to work on any pre-existing franchise is definitely a double-edged sword. And while I'm incredibly grateful and proud to have been involved in the projects, of course, all I see is what things could have been and what we might have done. The importance of it is not lost on me, as temporary custodians of any ideas, whether they pre-exist us or not, which is to say I think that even with an original idea, somehow I still don't quite understand where that creative impulse comes from and how the experience of writing something really is yours. I feel like we're all just channeling something that we're trying to serve, as opposed to something that we are doing and that is our work.

J.J. Abrams continued: "I know that Hollywood is a place where it used to be that people would be inspired by something that they would see or an old film or a show or something and think, ‘Oh, here's my response to that. Here's a version of that that.’ It's become a place where, more often than not, you see something and people get inspired by it and go, ‘Let's redo that exact thing.’ I feel like, as someone who started writing in television and telling original stories on film and in TV, it is something that I really do miss." Abrams added that the projects he's writing now are all original ideas, and that he would "love" for his next directorial outing to be "things that didn't pre-exist me necessarily." One original project that Abrams does have in the works is Demimonde, an "epic and intimate sci-fi fantasy drama" for HBO that's "centered around a world's battle against a monstrous, oppressive force."