Justice League Dark goes from live-action to animated

Justice League Dark was supposed to be a Guillermo del Toro-led film with a cast of A-list actors. Following his departure, DC backed away from the project, leaving it in a state of limbo.

Now, however, it looks like the movie is going to be made, but as a film by Warner Bros. animation division — the same division that made The Dark Knight Returns movies and the upcoming Killing Joke adaptation. According to the British Board of Film Classification, The Killing Joke will have a bonus feature previewing Justice League Dark. As The Hollywood Reporter points out, these previews are often included in DC's animated films as extras to tease the next movie in line.

While del Toro was dead set on bringing the adaptation to fruition, he later bowed out of the director's chair, citing scheduling conflicts. Instead, he decided to remain on board to help flesh out the script, but that was it. There's currently no word on who will replace him as director.

Justice League Dark began as a comic in 2011, and featured a wide array of DC's best superheroes uniting under John Constantine, Madame Xanadu and Zatanna to fight a series of enemies and threats regular superheroes weren't aware even existed. The comic book series ran for four years before being cancelled ahead of DC's Dark Universe launch, which hasn't launched yet.

The Killing Joke, DC's next animated feature, will have its premiere at San Diego Comic Con this summer before being made available digitally on July 23.