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A Complete Unknown director James Mangold is drawn to Swamp Thing's "abject deformation [and] loneliness" as his next movie ... and of course that Bernie Wrightson art

James Mangold admits that he loves the "gothic Horror, kind of Frankenstein legend, whole concept of man plant" behind DC's Swamp Thing

News by Graeme McMillan, Editor

Published on Sat May 17 2025

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James Mangold is a busy man, and one that’s difficult to pin down — fresh off his acclaimed 2024 Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, he’s attached to both an upcoming Star Wars movie about the origins of the Force, and also DC Studios’ Swamp Thing. During a recent appearance on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, he talked about what it is that draws him to the latter character.

Citing his fascination with the “gothic Horror, kind of Frankenstein legend, whole concept of man plant,” Mangold said that even just the character’s name was enough to grab his attention… but, of course, there’s so much more to Swamp Thing.

“I love the name, I love, just, the title,” he said. “The Bernie Wrightson art in the original series is so incredible. The aspect of kind of being separated from your life and suddenly haunting the woods, and kind of living in this abject deformation, this loneliness… that's really interesting.”

Does that mean that we should expect Swamp Thing to be part of the next wave of DC Studios announcements? (It was part of the first wave of DC’s Gods and Monsters movie slate, it’s worth remembering.) That’s something that Mangold found less easy to answer.

“I honestly don't know what's coming next,” he admitted. “I kind of went really rapid fire through a series of movies the last three [projects], yeah, and this is kind of my kind of [cool down time].”

We can but hope that the muck monster works his charms one more time, just to convince Mangold to sign on the dotted line before too long — and maybe he can bring A Complete Unknown’s Timothée Chalamet to play Matt Cable in the process.

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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.