Doug Liman is perhaps one of Hollywood’s unsung directors. Making his name with Swingers back in 1996 before moving onto such films as The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Edge of Tomorrow, Liman has been relatively prolific over the last decade and has slowly been enticed into even bigger films and the lure of comic books movies.

While promoting his new film The Wall this weekend, Liman has been speaking about some his upcoming projects including the newly announced Edge of Tomorrow sequel, whilst speaking to We Got This Covered not least the two superhero films that he has been linked with in the last year: Gambit and Justice League Dark.

On the former, the long-gestating X-Men spin-off that is set to star Channing Tatum (Kingsman: The Golden Circle), Liman says that his departure was simply a case that he didn’t feel emotionally engaged with the material and decided to let someone else step in, saying:

“I look for a personal connection to the movies I make and it may not be immediately obvious. You know, like what’s my connection to Jason Bourne? I have a deeply personal connection to that movie because it’s all about Iran-Contra and my father ran the investigations into Iran-Contra… In every story, I have a personal connection. ‘The Wall,’ you’d be like what could this filmmaker from New York possibly have in common with these two soldiers pinned down in Iraq?

“But ‘The Wall’ is really about perseverance. It’s about picking yourself up and you just keep going and that’s something I have firsthand experience with. Not in war but in other aspects of life. With ‘Gambit,’ I just never found that personal way in. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Doug Liman - Justice League Dark and Gambit

Next for Liman after The Wall and the upcoming American Made (which sees him re-team with Tom Cruise) is Justice League Dark (aka Dark Universe) which tells the story of the “alternate” Justice League with such characters as John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, and Zatanna. And on the contrary to Gambit, the director seems very excited about what he, Warner Bros and DC are going to be producing, saying:

“I think people will be surprised how character driven and how intimate ‘Justice League Dark’ is — in kind of a field of bloated comic book movies. We’ve found a way to do something that’s actually really personal and small, and that’s my goal… I love putting people in crazy situations. For John Constantine, we have an amazing set-up for him for ‘Justice League Dark’ that’s really human,”

The Wall is released in the US later this month with a UK date to be confirmed; American Made opens September 22nd.