It's hard to deny the appeal the constant stream of animated films DC Entertainment releases. What better to tide fans over between feature films than a few direct-to-video titles per year? Over the past few months we've heard rumors regarding a possible
Green Lantern animated prequel to coincide with the live-action film's theatrical release, as well as DC's interest in an Aquaman project. According to an interview between DC's top animation executive, Bruce Timm, and movie site ThinkMcFlyThink (NOTE: Best.. name.. ever), these tentative productions are dead in the water.
Here are a few excerpts from the interview:
Are there plans to do any more sequels for the recently released DC animated films?
"We had originally planned to do sequels for Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, but Wonder Woman’s sales started out extremely slow and then over time were eventually able to catch up to probably Justice League Frontier. The Exec’s decided because it wasn’t able to sell quickly right away, where as Justice League was, that there wouldn’t be any more female super hero films right now. We were developing and hoping to get started on a batgirl film based on Year One, but because of Wonder Woman’s slow sales start, that won’t be happening now.
"With Green Lantern, it didn’t perform nearly as well as what they had hoped it would. In the long run it eventually made its money back, but the sales weren’t there right away during its release. Hopefully with the release of the Live Action film next year, that will open up the doors for more Green Lantern relate material."
Are there any current plans for an ‘Aquaman’ animated film?
"No. We did developed an Aquaman script for a direct to video movie. Marketing decided it wasn’t going to be profitable enough to release.
"The comic book needs to be wiped clean and have a re-boot once a year, they’re not able to keep the fan base interested any longer then that."
Does Warner Bros give you full creative control over what you do?
"For the most part yes. We used to hand something in and have it turned down, and we’d be furious, but now whenever something like that happens it forces us to be more creative. We try to create things that we know will work to begin with, but even then there’s still some people at WB that are going to say “Batman can’t do that, or he doesn’t do this”."
I do wish they would be willing to roll the dice a little more often, and take chances on some projects.
When you’re developing Justice League related properties, are you able to use any character you want, and are there certain characters you prefer to use over others?
"We used almost everyone we wanted to, but there were other characters we weren’t able to use due to licensing or legal issues."
Was there a reason you decided to use John Stewart in Justice League [animated series]?
"Well for one to be honest, it was affirmative action. Every hero included at that point was white, it was my idea to include him. I felt we needed not only a diversity in ethnicity but also in personality, and Stewart was great for both."
If you could develop any comic book hero or story line into a theatrical release, what would you do?
"There’s too many to name, and really the problem is more the ones being made are terrible. For example I read about the Avengers and Captain America happening, and then I’ll read something about them, and they sound like they really suck. It always seems to sound good on paper, and then you see what’s going on with a project and it just isn’t nearly as interesting."
Are there any current plans to for ‘Judas Contract’ to be developed as an animated feature?
"We had quite a few drafts done up, but nothing that we really loved. We did love what they did with it in the Teen Titans series, and for now we’ll continue to go that route. Again it’s like the Batman Vs Dracula, it was done recently, and it worked. It would be redundant to do something different right now."
Is there any chance of ‘Hush’ or ‘The long Halloween’ being developed?
"Hush isn’t something that we’re all that interested in our end, but it has come up. The real problem with Hush is that it works better as comic then it would as a movie, it could work as a show, maybe. The same can really be said for The Long Halloween as well. It works a lot better as a comic, and not so much as a movie.
I wouldn’t rule out either of them altogether, but it won’t be happening anytime soon."
Why did you choose Batman: Under the Red Hood as your next project?
"When I was first Pitched the idea of Red Hood, I wasn’t at all interested, and I hadn’t actually read the comic at that point either. I picked up the comic, and I thought it was “okay”. It could be done, but I really wasn’t convinced. It wasn’t until after I sat down with Judd (Winik), for every issue I had, he had a solution. After that, we started working on it right away. We actually just watched the finished product in its entirety the other day. I’m not sure if its been officially announced yet, but our plans were to premiere Red Hood at Comic Con San Diego this July."
What would you say the tone of ‘Under the Red Hood’ will be?
"It’s definitely a very dark and intense movie, It’s not geared towards the “soccer moms”, or young kids. I’d say it deals with very serious subject matter, and it’s a very violent film."
Be sure to follow the link below to read more about Timm's thoughts on
Batman: Under the Red Hood; along with info regarding the possible revisiting of
Batman: The Animated Series and
Batman Beyond.
Information courtesy of ThinkMcFlyThink (I just had to fit that name in again)