The weirdest team in all of comics is getting a live-action TV series, thanks to DC TV mastermind Greg Berlanti. The Doom Patrol, who are set to first be introduced on the upcoming Titans TV show, will spin off into their own series on the DC Universe digital service.

The Doom Patrol was created by Arnold Drake, Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani in 1963. Dubbed “The World’s Strangest Heroes,” the original team was composed of Robotman, Elasti-Girl, Negative Man and The Chief. Beast Boy, created to join the Doom Patrol in 1965, eventually migrated to the Titans and was part of the iconic Wolfman/Perez lineup.

This would not be the first time the Titans and the Doom Patrol have crossed over on television. The mid-aughts Teen Titans cartoon kicked off its fifth season by looking at Gar’s past with the team and flashed back to their early battles with the Brotherhood of Evil while setting up the Brotherhood as the Titans’ main villain for that season.

Picking up after the events of Titans, Doom Patrol will find our reluctant heroes in a place they never expected to be, called to action by none other than Cyborg, who comes to them with a mission hard to refuse, but with a warning that is hard to ignore: their lives will never, ever be the same.

Doom Patrol cast

Timothy Dalton is set for the starring role as Dr. Niles “The Chief” Caulder. The legendary actor, and former James Bond, is coming off a television run on the Showtime horror series, Penny Dreadful. This is an amazing addition to the cast, sending momentum for this series into the stratosphere.

Alan Tudyk (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Firefly) recently joined the Doom Patrol cast to play the appropriately charasmatic role as signature comic villain Eric Morden, a.k.a. Mr. Nobody.

While Mr. Nobody – introduced in Doom Patrol #86, dated March 1984 – may be a wacky-looking rogue who, in Deadpool-like fashion, brandishes humourous witticisms and one-liners, his abilities are unworthy of ridicule. His origin story starts as Eric Morden, an egotistical criminal who enjoys the affectation as a “one-man crime wave.” However, he bites off more than he can chew in Paraguay when exposed to a hidden ex-Nazi scientist’s experiment, which changes him into something resembling surrealist art, armed with the ability to drain the sanity of his victims. Cavorting as the virtual man known as Mr. Nobody, Morden continues his crimes and gains followers with his eccentric ideology.

The series has also added Brendan Fraser (The Mummy) as the voice of Cliff Steele/Robotman. Riley Shanahan will handle the motion capture/performance elements for when the character is on screen, but Fraser will also play the role in flashback scenes.

“A former race car driver, Cliff Steele was in a horrific accident that left his body uninhabitable. Cliff’s brain was saved by the mysterious Dr. Niles Caulder and he lives on in a powerful robotic body.”

Doom Patrol story

Doom Patrol is a re-imagining of DC’s most beloved group of outcast superheroes: Robotman, Negative Man, Elasti-Girl, and Crazy Jane, led by modern-day mad scientist Dr. Niles Caulder. The Doom Patrol’s members each suffered horrible accidents that gave them superhuman abilities — but also left them scarred and disfigured.

Traumatised and downtrodden, the team found purpose through The Chief, who brought them together to investigate the weirdest phenomena in existence — and to protect Earth from what they find. Part support group, part superhero team, the Doom Patrol is a band of super-powered freaks who fight for a world that wants nothing to do with them.

The series will also feature Cyborg, who will be played by Joivan Wade (The First Purge). According to the character description, “Vic Stone is the charming and sarcastic half-human, half-machine superhero known as Cyborg. Vic may be connected to every computer on the world, but he struggles to maintain the connections that make him human. Desperate to gain acceptance from the outside world, Vic harnesses the curse of his cybernetic body and uses his powers as the ultimate hero for the digital age.”

It looks like the show will follow the same ethos from the original comics in that the Doom Patrol will take on a mission that’s just too weird for the Justice League.

Doom Patrol crew

Doom Patrol is written by Supernatural‘s Jeremy Carver, who will also exec produce with Berlanti and DC Entertainment president Geoff Johns.

Doom Patrol release date

Doom Patrol has received a 13-episode, straight-to-series order. The series will begin production this year and debut in 2019.

We’ll keep you updated as we learn more!

The cast for Denis Villeneuve’s huge beast of a Dune project is starting to fill out. The Blade Runner 2049 director’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel is set to span two movies, and Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) is now in talks to star as Lady Jessica, Paul Atreides’ mother.

Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides will be played by Timothee Chalamet in the ambitious films. The actor sprung to fame in Call Me By Your Name, for which he received an Oscar nomination.

Villeneuve’s commitment to making a new big screen take of Dune is, for one thing, said to have led to him turning down the chance to make James Bond 25. The director was already committed to a new take on the saga when 007 came calling, and he’s been developing Dune for some time.

He revealed a while back that bringing the book to the screen would likely take more than one movie. “Dune will probably take two years to make. The goal is to make two films, maybe more”.

That’d be a fair gamble too, although something that suits the amount of material in the book. It’s unclear yet exactly when Villeneuve intends to start filming Dune, but this new casting report has us thinking that production may well get underway before the year’s out, although it’s rumoured for an early 2019 start. There’s also chatter that Legendary Entertainment will be looking for Villeneuve to deliver the movie in time for a summer 2020 release.

The spice must flow!

As we hear more, we’ll keep you posted.