James Gunn once pitched a Plastic Man movie alongside actor Matthew Lillard while the two worked together on Scooby-Doo.The story came up after Lillard, best known for playing Shaggy in the live-action Scooby-Doo films, expressed his desire to appear in a James Gunn movie on social media. The filmmaker responded that he was "figuring it out" and shared that the two nearly made a superhero movie together. In 2000, they met with the president of Warner Bros. to pitch a Plastic Man movie on the set of Scooby-Doo, where Gunn was working as a screenwriter.
Who is Plastic Man?
Plastic Man is a stretchy superhero who's typically seen as a comic relief character in the Justice League. First introduced in Police Comics #1 in 1941, he was originally a thief named Patrick "Eel" O'Brian who gained the ability to stretch his body into all sorts of shapes. He's one of the first explicitly "comedic" superheroes who has a habit of playing pranks and getting into trouble with other members of the Justice League. Despite appearing frequently in JLA comics, Plastic Man has rarely appeared in other DC media. His biggest non-comics appearances are in the 2008 cartoon Batman: The Brave and the Bold and a short-lived Plastic Man cartoon in 1979.
Before the live-action Scooby-Doo, Lillard was best known for his villainous role in the original Scream in 1996. Starting in the early 2000s, he portrayed the cowardly Norville "Shaggy" Rogers in Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Lillard's popularity in the role led him to play Shaggy in several more animated features, becoming the official replacement for the original voice actor, Casey Kasem, whose health was declining. Lillard voiced Shaggy in the fan-favorite Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated show in 2010 and dozens of direct-to-video animated films.
James Gunn Since Scooby-Doo
As for Gunn, he's had quite the career since Scooby-Doo -- the prolific writer/director is now the co-head of DC Studios and has completely revised the studio's release schedule over the next several years. Gunn's detailed slate of new DC Universe films and TV shows will start with the reboot film Superman: Legacy in 2025, although several previously scheduled DCU movies will come out before then.
Gunn's next outing will be the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (in theaters May 5), while audiences will see Lillard next in the upcoming Five Nights at Freddy's film adaptation alongside Josh Hutcherson.
Source: Twitter