Geekery: Justice League Dark and ‘The Shining’ Getting Shows on HBOMax
The new streaming service has inked contracts with JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot TV group for straight-to-order (no pilot required) for new series set in three rather different universes.
First up is Duster, which is set in the southwest during the 1970s and focuses on a getaway driver for a crime syndicate on the rise “that goes from awful to wildly, stupidly, dangerously awful.” It’s being written by Abrams and LaToya Morgan (The Walking Dead, Into the Badlands).
The second is a spin off of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining called Outlook that will be focused on the horror of the hotel itself and the source of its evil. The 10 part series is being written by Dustin Thomason and Scott Brown, who both worked on Hulu’s Castle Rock. It’s being reported that they’ve started a mini writers’ room during lock down to get started on the scripts.
Overlook Hotel as seen in 1980’s ‘The Shining.’
The third is the one that they released the least amount of information on – Justice League Dark. The comics feature a team of magic-based characters such as Zatanna, Deadman, Swamp Thing, and John Constantine. Warner Brothers has done (subjectively) better with their TV series than movies, which are mainly on the CW. This would move to a more adult platform with characters and stories that don’t really lend themselves to the teenage soap set the CW garners. We’ll have to wait and see if this fairs better than Swamp Thing (canceled before season 1 was finished) and Constantine (rolled into the Arrowverse).
The streaming service is launching in May (for $15/month) with a bunch of exclusive series, and originals from across the Warner Brothers brand (Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, HBO, etc.) included. They are leaning hard into their existing IP for new content – including Dune, Gossip Girl, The Boondocks, Gremlins, Grease and Green Lantern.
