Yesterday, it was reported that The Punisher actor Will Patton would play corrupt CEO Avery Sunderland in DC Universe's Swamp Thing series, serving as the show's main villain. But That Hashtag Show writer Charles Murphy claims that DC had actors Kurt Russell and Greg Kinnear in mind to play the villain before settling on Patton.RELATED: DC Universe's Swamp Thing Casts Alec Holland & Title CharacterOn his Twitter account,  Murphy states that DC offered the role of Sunderland to Russell and Kinnear before ultimately talking with Patton, and subsequently casting him. However, Murphy does not go into full detail as to why the actors turned down the role.

Having starred in superhero movies before, Russell and Kinnear may have simply wanted to take a break from the genre, and focus on other projects, or were not interested in starring in the series. Russell especially would have made sense to star as Sunderland, given his own experience fighting a monster in the 1982 film, The Thing.

Though their reasons for turning down the role are unclear, it's not out of the realm of possibilities for the actors to show up in other DC projects beyond Swamp Thing, or even show up in the series in different roles, either as allies or enemies of the titular monster.

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Swamp Thing is based on characters created by Len Wein and the late Bernie Wrightson. The show is produced by James Wan and his production firm Atomic Monster in conjunction with Warner Bros. Mark Verheiden and Gary Dauberman write and co-executive produce with Wan and Len Wiseman, who will direct.