Once upon a time, when Zack Snyder held sway over the emergent DCEU at Warner Bros., rumors swirled about potential parts for Jeffrey Dean Morgan. The actor had just played The Comedian in Snyder’s “Watchmen,” and he was fresh off making “The Losers,” another DC property (via Vertigo), with Akiva Goldsman. There was talk of Morgan taking on the role of Lobo in a film with Goldsman involved, but nothing materialized.
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Rumors never die, however, so it only makes sense for Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz, years later, to put the proper question to Morgan in a new interview on the podcast: was that talk about Lobo legitimate at all? Yes, as it turns out. Said the actor, “That was real. In fact, the producer, Akiva Goldsman, who did ‘The Losers,’ had the rights to ‘Lobo,’ and so that was real talk. I wanted to do it. I had never heard of Lobo, and so I dove right in and was like, ‘Oh, yeah.’”
Morgan’s penchant for sarcasm and casual savagery onscreen makes the actor a perfect fit for the intergalactic bounty hunter. However, another issue worried the actor about the part. “It suited my humor and my sarcasm—all that. It didn’t suit my body,” Morgan explained. “But I was like, ‘I’ve got time. I’ve got a year to get big.’ But it just never came to be.”
How close did that “Lobo” film starring Morgan get to production, though? “There was a script floating around that needed work,” confirmed Morgan. “But Warner Bros., coming off ‘Watchmen’ and ‘The Losers,’ wasn’t having a great time with DC—and maybe Jeffrey Dean at the same time. Now that I think about it, maybe we shouldn’t bet too much on this dude.”
So Goldsman’s “Lobo” sank, but Morgan reemerged in the DCEU with a brief turn as Thomas Wayne in Snyder’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” And according to Morgan, Snyder had plans for a cameo role in the 2016 blockbuster. “I remember when he called me to do the role, and I was like, ‘Well, it’s really nothing,’” Morgan recalled. “And he’s like, ‘I’ve got bigger plans.’ And I was like, ‘Well, Zack, what does that mean, man?’ He’s like, ‘Can you just trust me?’ And I’m like, ‘Of course.’”
Morgan took the part regardless of Snyder’s other plans, though. “I was going to do it even without this incentive; there was more,” he said.
So what did Snyder have in mind? For fans of Batman comics, it should be easy to parse, but according to Morgan, his ideas for the actor date back to the “Watchmen” press tour. “I remember we started talking about Batman, him and I together…and he was like, ‘I would love to see you play Batman.’ And I was like, ‘Bro, don’t even tease. Stop. I’m going to have a f*cking heart attack right now.’”
That’s when Snyder dropped his idea: having Morgan play the Thomas Wayne who dons Batman’s cape and cowl in the “Flashpoint” storyline. “At one point, he looked over and just said, ‘Flashpoint.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, f*cking goddamn it,’” Morgan laughed. “I almost didn’t want to hear it, right? It was real.”
Of course, fans were already speculating about the possibility of Morgan playing “Flashpoint” Thomas Wayne, and the actor knew it. “There was so much immediate fan speculation. Everybody’s so smart these days and knows that world so well,” Morgan remembered.
However, the DCEU took other, less ambitious and unfortunate directions, and Snyder eventually left Warner Bros. and DC to work on other projects. “I was so shocked that, with Zack and Warner Bros., it didn’t work out because I love his stuff, and I love that he leans toward the darkness,” Morgan said about Snyder’s exit. “Zack was so versed, and he knew this world better than anyone. He loves the iconography. It’s in his bones. He bleeds it.”
Time marches on, however, and the DCEU is now defunct, with James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU in its place; Snyder is finishing up “The Last Photograph,” a war photography drama far away from comic book films, and Morgan has developed into a quality character actor, with his role as Negan on “The Walking Dead” cementing his legacy. If the stars aligned and Morgan played Lobo or “Flashpoint” Thomas Wayne, though? Well, those are two tantalizing DC what-ifs that will probably never entirely go away.
