20 years ago, DC comic fans were over the moon when they learned that Liam Neeson was playing Ra’s al Ghul in Batman Begins. This acclaimed and decorated performer would bring his highly-trained pedigree to the role, adding more credibility to the 2005 starting point for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight saga. Hot off the heels from being a Jedi Knight as well as working alongside Harrison Ford and Martin Scorcese in some other huge roles, many forgot this Batman villain wasn’t his first role in a superhero movie. That started 15 years earlier when he and Sam Raimiattempted an original franchise of their own.
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Darkman was not your average superhero. He was a street-level crimefighter who was motivated by love and revenge, a scientist whose life was figuratively and literally destroyed by a catastrophic event that imbued him with powers while permanently deforming him. There was action, drama and a sympathetic narrative that drove this superhero/ horror hybrid cloaked in darkness into the spotlight for a fleeting moment in time. Over 35 years later, we believe it’s time for a new beginning to this obscure Raimi creation that deserves to be more popular than it originally was.
Darkman Was A Gritty Superhero Movie Before They Were Popular
Director Sam Raimi envisioned the idea of Darkman to be a cross between noir heroes like The Shadow, the gothic tragedy of The Hunchback of Notre Damewith the disfigured face of The Phantom of the Opera and a little bit of Batman’s intrigue tossed in for good measure. The story follows Dr. Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson), a scientist working on a synthetic skin whose research is being conducted in a building that the local crime bosses have an interest in. An explosive “accident” transforms Westlake into a horribly burnt and scarred being with heightened adrenaline and emotions. Using his newfound and somewhat uncontrollable abilities with his synthetic skin, he masquerades as these mobsters to take them down and get his revenge for taking his old life away and forcing him into a new role as “Darkman.”
Neeson made a meal out of this role, likening it to the roles mentioned above as well as taking inspiration from Spencer Tracy’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We were still several years away from him breaking into mainstream Hollywood thanks to his Academy Award winning role in Schindler’s List, and later as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I, but Darkman was a great and underrated example of his uncanny performing abilities. “One of the big hurdles for me was once I had all that stuff on was for me to believe that was my face,” Neeson explained during a press interview ahead of the movie’s release. “That it’s not makeup and not five hours worth of fitting prosthetics on, so once I accepted it the audience will accept that this is really my face.”
Darkman wasn’t a blockbuster hit by any means and nowhere near the hype level of the typical MCU or DCU film, but it earned more than three times its production cost and reviewed a fair amount of positive press. The reaction was enough to earn two direct-to-video sequels — neither of which did particularly well or starred Neeson — as well as a short run of novelized adventures and a non-canonical Marvel Comics mini-series in 1993 written by Kurt Busiek. After the third sequel, Darkman was stagnant as an IP and dead in the water as a franchise. In retrospect, this franchise may have suffered from arriving on the scene too early as the comic-book film-adaptation boom was still a few years away. Gritty anti-heroes were en vogue, but were treated as cinematic outliers that lacked mass appeal, something else that would change one decade later.
Darkman Is Ready For A Modern Reboot
If Darkman had come out during the last few years instead of 1990, it’s safe to say audiences would be far more willing to accept and embrace it in a larger way than they did thirty years earlier. At the time, it couldn’t find the right audience to keep it relevant. It was too graphically violent for children to jump into it (not like that stopped other R-rated movies from becoming popular kids’ cartoons), and it was too weird and geeky for viewers other than comic book or horror fans to really appreciate it. The niche was too narrow for the mainstream moviegoer, but thanks to the MCU dominating the box office and making space for darker superhero films like Logan and The Batman, it’s safe to say the time for a new movie is now.
According to Raimi, talks about a Darkman reboot or legacy sequel have been going on for several years, but with no momentum other than discussion. “Universal is talking about a Darkman sequel. There’s a producer attached,” Raimi explained during an Interview with The Wrap in 2022 while promoting Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. “I haven’t heard the story yet or gone into it, I’ve been so busy with this movie. But I think it’s cool.” Raimi also commented on the possibility of Neeson reprising the role, which the director downplayed but added “he’d be incredible” if he was willing to do it one more time.
As recently as January 2026, Raimi continued to speak about the possibility of a new Darkman, but the issue of funding seems to be the biggest setback that has yet to be overcome. Whether or not it makes sense for Neeson to don the filthy gauze one more time is up for debate, but a retelling of the character done by the director that Raimi has evolved into today could be outstanding. If his recent work as a director and producer on films like Send Helpand the ongoingEvil Dead saga are any indicators of what we could expect, Darkman would be a welcome addition that would fit in with audiences more now than it did during the 90’s.
Is Darkman overdue for a sequel or reboot, or should this character stay buried and forgotten? Join the conversation and let us know in the comments below.
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