James Mangold says Swamp Thing will be a Gothic horror

James Mangold has shared more details about his Swamp Thing DC movie – and explained why it's not a franchise movie.

News that Mangold was in talks to helm the Swamp Thing movie, arriving as part of DCU Chapter One: Gods and Monsters, first broke in February.

"While I'm sure DC views Swamp Thing as a franchise, I would be viewing it as a very simple, clean, Gothic horror movie about this man/monster," Mangold told Variety, adding he'd been "toying for years with the idea of making a kind of Frankenstein movie." When James Gunn and Peter Safran became co-CEO's of DC Studios, Mangold said he "put in a friendly call" about a Swamp Thing movie that would be "just doing my own thing with this, just a standalone."

There are no plot details on the movie just yet, though Gunn revealed in the Chapter One announcement that Swamp Thing is a "very dark horror story" that’s "tonally outside of the rest of the DCU."

Other projects coming as part of Chapter One include Superman: Legacy and Batman movie The Brave and the Bold, set to be helmed by The Flash director Andy Muschietti.

Next up from Mangold is the highly anticipated Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which arrives in theaters this June 30 in the US and June 28 in the UK. Harrison Ford is back as the titular archeologist adventurer, while the rest of the cast includes Mads Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Toby Jones, and Antonio Banderas.

While you wait for Indiana Jones 5, check out our guide to all the upcoming major movie release dates for everything else 2023 has in store.

I'm a Senior Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film section. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.