MIDNIGHT MASS Creator Mike Flanagan "Would Absolutely Love" to Be Part of James Gunn's DCU
Mike Flanagan has had a long and great career developing and directing horror projects, and the films and TV shows that he’s made have been freakin’ great!
He’s worked on projects such as The Haunting of Hill House, Doctor Sleep, Midnight Mass, and more. During a recent appearance at FanEXPO Canada this past weekend, Flanagan said he's a fan of DC Studios Co-CEO James Gunn, and that he'd love to join Gunn's new DC Universe at some point in his career.
During the panel, the director said: "I've always been a huge fan of James Gunn as a person and filmmaker, and that is a universe I would absolutely love to be apart of.”
Flanagan has already pitched Gunn DC film project for a Clayface movie. He previously shared that he would be “really keen to do a standalone Clayface movie as a horror/thriller/tragedy.”
He later shared that he actually pitched that movie to Warner Bros., saying: "They didn't bite on that one. Though I'm ready to go anytime."
Flanagan then talked about his pitch meeting with the studio about Clayface being a horror movie, and that wasn’t the only DC movie that they talked about. He said:
“I went into Warner Bros. to have the meeting about DC. It was a general meeting with [producer] Jon Berg talking about whether there was anything in the DC Universe that I could be a fit for…
“I really want[ed] to do Clayface. I went in and said, ‘You know, if you want to do some horror-leaning DC stuff, boy do I have a great take on Clayface. I’d love to do that movie.'”
“And then if not, I wanted to talk about Scarecrow and Justice League Dark and Constantine. And I kind of threw everything up there and then said, ‘As a child, I used to dress up as Superman, because that was my hero — Christopher Reeve’s Superman was my hero.’ And the meeting kind of went nowhere. [Berg] didn’t really grab onto any of that stuff.”
It’s a bummer that they aren’t interested in a Clayface movie or any of these other DC projects. But, maybe one day James Gunn and Peter Safran will let him make a DC film.
Flanagan is currently working on a new Exorcist movie and he’s also been developing an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.
When talking about The Exorcist project, he said: "The Exorcist is one of the reasons I became a filmmaker, and it is an honor to have the chance to try something fresh, bold, and terrifying within its universe.
“Reuniting with my friends at Blumhouse, with whom I've made some of my favorite pieces of work, only makes this more exciting."
Are there any other DC characters you’d want to see Flanagan explore in a movie?