When The Whitest Kids U’ Know‘s Zach Cregger made his true directorial debut with Barbarian (he had previously co-directed Miss March back in 2009), he announced himself as one of the preeminent voices in modern horror. With Weapons, starring Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, he has proved that Barbarian was no fluke. Cregger is ambitious and crafts films that are compelling, intense, and surprising. What isn’t surprising is that Cregger is now being enlisted to helm entries in some major IPs. First, he’s going to stick with horror via the Resident Evil reboot, which is looking to finally be the faithful and fun adaptation fans have been waiting for.
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Will he break out of horror? It certainly seems likely. And it seems if he could pick which franchise he could join, it would be James Gunn’s DCU. Specifically, via an original script of his titled Henchmen.
Cregger has called the script for Henchmen his favorite he’s ever written, which certainly piques interest given the quality of Barbarian and Weapons. And the plot does just the same. In a subgenre filled with bombast, Henchmen sounds like something with its feet firmly rooted to the ground.
The script, which he wrote before Barbarian, follows a low-level henchman in the crime-ridden, seedy underworld of Gotham City who is looking to break through in some way. He gets that chance when he knocks out Batman and holds him captive.
Does this mean the DCU’s Batman could appear in the movie? It seems to be the intention, with small roles for Harley Quinn and Joker as well.
As of now, Cregger has not officially pitched Henchmen to Peter Safran and James Gunn at DC Studios. However, the company is supposedly aware of the director’s desire to join the team.
It’s quite early at this point to say whether or not Henchmen has a good chance of coming to fruition. However, it seems fairly likely that Gunn and Safran would be interested in at least taking a meeting with Cregger, be it for this particular project or another.
And should Henchmen get the green light, it wouldn’t be able to happen for a while. This is mostly because Batman, who is set to debut in The Brave and the Bold, has yet to even be cast. There are plenty of rumored potential candidates, of course, with the main one being Reacher‘s Alan Ritchson, but nothing is official. Not to mention, if Joker and Harley Quinn are indeed a part of the narrative, they would need to be cast as well.
Then there’s the fact that Cregger first needs to prove he can pull of an IP project, so the success or failure of Resident Evil may very well be something of a deciding factor regarding DC Studios’ pursuit of Cregger and his idea. Lastly, Matt Reeves’ The Batman trilogy still has two more installments on the way, and whatever Reeves wants to do with those movies will likely take precedence over any new ideas for the DCU.
In short, Cregger has an exciting future in front of him. Will that include the DCU? Time will tell.
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