Horror fans were recently saddened by the news that Cary Fukunaga, the acclaimed director of season 1 of HBO’s True Detective, had left the long developed adaptation of Stephen King’s It. In development since 2012, the project began at Warner Brothers, but was later moved to New Line. Envisioned as a two part adaptation, the first film would have focused on the protagonists as children fighting the creature, and the second part was to focus on them as adults who return to their hometown when It begins killing again. We’re the Millers star Will Poulter was in talks to play Pennywise.
However, as awesome as that film sounds, we will sadly never see it. Cary Fukunaga’s It will join the ranks of George Miller’s Justice League: Mortal, James Cameron’s Spider-Man, and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 as films with huge potential that we wish would have been made.
So what’s next for Cary Fukunaga? As the mind behind season one of True Detective, one of the best series ever put on television, he is certain to be a hot commodity. I’m sure that Marvel Studios, Warner Brothers, and Fox would all love to have him as a part of their cinematic universes. So here is what I would like to see Fukunaga tackle, should he choose to work with any of these three studios.
Marvel Studios- The obvious choice for the director of True Detective is to get him working on the Punisher. And that would be undoubtedly awesome, but I feel like it is too obvious of a choice. I would like to see something more unique for Fukunaga to tackle, so that he doesn’t just do True Detective in the MCU.
I would like to see Cary Fukunaga take on Moon Knight. Be it as a Netflix show or film (Though a Netflix show fits the character far better), I feel that his style would fit right in with the series. He is a master of tormented characters, and after seeing the way he integrated Rust Cohle’s hallucinations into the series, I would love to see his direction of scenes where Marc Spector speaks to Khonshu. He does a great job working with dark, demented characters and and weaving complex, mature stories on television.
Warner Brothers- Given Warner Brothers’ current DC line up has directors set for pretty much every entry, or at the very least, rumored directors, I’m going to have to use my imagination a bit more on this one. We all know that Guillermo Del Toro is working on a Justice League Dark film, to feature characters like John Constantine, Swamp Thing, the Spectre, and Zatanna. This will undoubtedly open up many doors for solo films featuring these characters. Fukunaga’s style fits many of these characters perfectly. Be it before or after Del Toro’s Dark Universe film, I’d love to see Cary Fukunaga take on either John Constantine, Swamp Thing, or the Spectre. His visual style and method of storytelling fit right in with the adventures of those three characters, particularly Constantine and the Spectre. If the Swamp Thing film were to be based off of the early Alan Moore issues, though, that would also be a great choice for Fukunaga.
Fox- This is a tricky one. We have absolutely no idea what Fox has in mind for the future of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and all of the projects that they have announced already have creative teams working on them.
I know that the X-Men universe is currently taking place in the 80’s with X-Men: Apocalypse, but executives at Fox have said that there is a possibility of the original team returning for one final movie. With Singer currently occupied by the 80’s-era X-Men, I think that Fukunaga would be a great choice of director to helm the final movie featuring the original X-Men. They could redo the Dark Phoenix saga, properly this time, and really give the original X-Men team a proper goodbye.
But what should be done about the two part adaptation of Stephen King’s It, now in limbo? I really hope they keep the cast Fukunaga had (Poulter is a really cool choice as Pennywise), and get someone like Michael Dougherty, the director of Trick ‘r Treat, onto the project. If you’ve ever seen Trick ‘r Treat, his visual style would work well with the tone of the classic Stephen King story.
What do comic book property would you like to see Fukunaga take on? What do you think should be done with the It remake? Leave a comment below, and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!