Guillermo Del Toro No Longer Attached to JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK, and Vertigo Film Titles Move To New Line

It's been leaning in this direction for a while, but now it's finally happened: THR says that Guillermo del Toro is no longer attached to Justice League Dark.

Del Toro, who's busy with Pacific Rim 2 and Crimson Peak, wrote the screenplay for the movie, which involves lesser-known characters like Constantine, Jason Blood, Zatanna, and Deadman fighting against supernatural forces, but now he's completely off the film. Though the movie is based on a Vertigo comic title, it's staying put at Warner Bros. at the same time that almost all of the other Vertigo-based projects in development at WB are downshifting to New Line Cinema. That includes the adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, which has Joseph Gordon-Levitt lined up to direct and star.

WB is reportedly concentrating more on its classic stable of DC characters like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Justice League as it continues to build their own cinematic universe, which means that all of the lower-tiered comic-based projects are being bumped over to New Line, where they will almost certainly receive lower budgets than they would if they stayed in the main branch of the studio. It remains to be seen how this move will actually affect any of the developing projects, but while the popular response may be to decry the move as a way to save money, in reality it may be the only way these films ever actually get made at all.