Dwayne Johnson and Brad Peyton have teamed up on two films already, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and this month's San Andreas. But they were supposed to have a third, the DC Comics film based on the popular Lobo character. The project had been in the works some years ago but never got off the ground, and Peyton has some thoughts on the reasons why. He tells SuperheroHype...
"I think what’s happening with DC is that they have prioritized what they need to make first in order to kind of lay the foundations for the DC Universe. This is what I believe is happening just from what they’ve been taking about. They’re talking about Justice League, Batman v Superman, and going into Flash, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman. Those are kind of the pillars of that universe."
Warner Bros. has moved in a completely different direction since Lobo was initially proposed, and finding a way to fit it in now would be difficult. Peyton isn't sure the studio was firmly behind a Lobo film to begin with....
"It’s one of those things where, creatively, you and I get it, but there’s a lot of people that don’t quite get that. It’s a real uphill battle to talk people into spending a lot of money to do things correctly… I was really happy with the script, [though]. I talked with Dwayne about it. Joel Silver and I had a really amazing meeting about it. I did a rewrite of the script and was really, really excited for it. In their estimation, though, he wasn’t one of those main guys… That’s fair enough....I think that, to do any kind of comic book universe correctly, you do need to establish, ‘Here’s the tone. Here’s the main people.’ Then we can grow offshoots from there. With Marvel, they’re now doing smaller characters like Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. They obviously had to start, though, with their big guns and set up The Avengers. I kind of feel like that’s where DC is now. They’re setting that team up."
With Johnson set to play Black Adam in a Shazam movie, the likelihood he'll play Lobo is practically zero. Peyton still holds out hope the film will happen someday...
"I think there’s going to be a really amazing time for Lobo and I think people are going to realize, certainly once they revisit it, what they’re sitting on. But you never know. I’m really happy with the project and where we got it and fingers crossed it comes to fruition at some point."
