Doug Liman Departs ‘Justice League Dark’

Doug Liman has quit Justice League Dark.

The 51-year-old director has parted ways with the upcoming DC Comics tale, which is also known as Dark Universe, in order to focus on his adaptation of Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking, which is scheduled to begin production later this year, Variety reports.

Despite the filmmaker’s departure, the movie will still go ahead, with Warner Bros. currently in talks with other directors to take over the project, and Michael Gilio writing a new draft of the script.

Doug had previously dropped out of helming Gambit in order to focus on the Warner Bros. movie, while Justice League Dark was originally supposed to be directed by Guillermo del Toro, but he had to step down because of his schedule.

Dark Universe follows an undercover superhero team comprised of occult characters such as Detective John Constantine, Etrigan the Demon, Zatanna, Swamp Thing, Deadman, Shade and The Changing Man.

Some of the characters have already appeared on the big screen before; Swamp Thing’s story of tragedy and redemption was brought to the big screen in 1982 by late horror legend Wes Craven, while Keanu Reeves portrayed occult investigator and conman John Constantine in the 2005 movie Constantine.

The director’s departure comes just a few weeks after he spoke of his vision to make the film “intimate” and character driven.

He said earlier this month: “I think people will be surprised how character driven and how intimate ‘Justice League Dark’ is — in kind of a field of bloated comic book movies. We’ve found a way to do something that’s actually really personal and small, and that’s my goal. [My new movie] ‘The Wall’ is about character. The scenario allows me to dive into what I think is… I just love people! I love putting people in crazy situations. For (lead character) John Constantine, we have an amazing set-up for him for ‘Justice League Dark’ that’s really human.”