Jeffrey Dean Morgan Reveals How Close He Came to Playing Lobo Before Jason Momoa

Before Jason Momoa got to tear into the DC Universe as Lobo, another fan-favorite actor came surprisingly close to playing the Main Man.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan was once in serious talks to bring the intergalactic bounty hunter to the big screen, and this wasn’t just one of those casting rumors that bounced around Hollywood for a few weeks.

There was an actual Lobo movie in development, Morgan was being considered for the role, and he was ready to put in the work to become the massive, violent, cigar-chomping DC maniac.

Unfortunately, a rough script, development problems, and a nervous Warner Bros. eventually brought the whole thing crashing down.

Morgan recently opened up about the abandoned project on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, explaining that the opportunity came through producer Akiva Goldsman, who worked with him on The Losers. Goldsman held the rights to Lobo at the time and approached Morgan about potentially taking on the character.

The funny thing is, Morgan initially had no idea who Lobo even was, he said: “I had never heard of Lobo, and so I dove right in. It suited my humor and my sarcasm, all that.”

Once he started reading the comics, he could see why the character was a good fit. Lobo's nasty attitude, twisted humor, and general disregard for pretty much everyone around him lined up nicely with the kind of sarcastic edge Morgan can bring to a role.

There was just one fairly obvious problem. Lobo is freaking enormous. Morgan knew he'd need a serious physical transformation to pull off the character, but he apparently wasn't intimidated by the challenge. “It didn’t suit my body but I was like, I got time. I got a year to get big,” he added.

It's pretty easy to imagine Morgan going full beast mode for the role. We've seen the actor bring plenty of swagger, menace, and dark comedy to characters over the years, and Lobo would've given him the chance to crank all of those qualities up several notches.

The project got far enough along that a script was written, but according to Morgan, it “needed work.” Those necessary rewrites never really came together, and Warner Bros. had another reason to get cold feet.

At the time, the studio had recently released Watchmen and The Losers, and neither film delivered the kind of box-office performance Warner Bros. had hoped for. Morgan appeared in both movies, which apparently didn't help convince executives to gamble on another DC Comics adaptation with him at the center of it.

Morgan joked about how the studio may have looked at the situation: “I think Warner Brothers coming off of Watchmen and Losers and wasn’t having a great time with DC. Maybe Jeffrey Dean at the same time. Now that I think about it, maybe we shouldn’t bet too much on this dude.”

Morgan had publicly expressed interest in playing Lobo as far back as 2009, but the project ultimately stalled and never made it out of development. It's one of those alternate-universe comic book casting stories that's especially fun to think about because Morgan actually feels like he could've pulled it off.

Lobo was created by Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen and made his comic book debut in Omega Men #3 in June 1983. Over the years, the character evolved into one of DC's most outrageous antiheroes, an absurdly powerful Czarnian bounty hunter whose adventures regularly combine extreme violence with wonderfully ridiculous comedy.

After decades of Hollywood trying to figure out what to do with him, Lobo finally made his cinematic debut with Momoa taking on the role in DC's Supergirl. Unfortunately, he was just a throwaway character in the movie.

Momoa certainly has the physique, attitude, and larger-than-life energy needed for the character, but Morgan's version would've been a very different beast. His Lobo probably would've leaned harder into the character's grimy sarcasm and mean streak, and I'm genuinely curious what that movie could've looked like.

Morgan already has an interesting history with DC. Along with Watchmen and The Losers, he played Thomas Wayne in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which sparked years of fan hopes that he might eventually return as the gun-toting Flashpoint version of Batman.

Jason Momoa is the Main Man now, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Lobo remains one hell of a fun DC casting "what if."