Back Talk is a semi-regular news feature that looks at the latest trends, celebrity quotes, and media propaganda and attempts to read between the lines, cut through all the PC BS and present the facts as straight forward as possible.
By: Mark Julian
Not too far back, I posted an article on Bruce Timm and an interesting chat he had with Big Shiny Robot . The immediate, jump-out quote to emerge from that interview was Timm stating his reasons for why WB and his own production crew will probably never make an animated Green Arrow or Aquaman movie. Timm wasn't necessarily singling out these characters, it was more of a response to the question of why Batman dominates the WB animated movie landscape. Here's the quote:
Big Shiny Robot: When you’re looking for new projects that are within the DC Universe, is it difficult to deal with that wealth of riches that you have to choose from in the source material, or do you have a mental list of things that you say, “I’d really like to go back and do this if they gave me the opportunity.”
TIMM: It is kind of a broad question, and hopefully I can answer it in a way without insulting tons and tons of people, but…I wish there was more really strong source material like All-Star Superman or Batman: Year One for us to adapt into movies. There really aren’t. There’s a lot of good comics over the entire course of history, but in terms of finding a really well-known comic like Batman: Year One or Dark Knight Returns that’s not only a great comic but also famous and has its own name-recognition value, there aren’t that many of them out there. Is there a Dark Knight equivalent for Aquaman or for Green Arrow? No, there really isn’t. So there may be good stories out there, but they’re not on that same level. It definitely makes it easier when there’s a story like Batman: Year One or Dark Knight or All-Star Superman or The New Frontier. Something that’s really that strong and you can read the comic and go, “OK, I can totally see how that would work as an animated film.” There aren’t really that many properties out there that are like that.
A lot of you CBMers were not buying Timm's explanation. Many of you pointed to Green Arrow: Year One
as a great Emerald Archer-centric bit of DC material that would translate will into animated form. Others also made the case for
Green Arrow: The Long Bow Hunters and
Green Arrow: Quiver. Even more CBMers campaigned for a Flash solo film, even though there was no mention of the character in the article. I think that alone is a testament to that character's popularity. As for Aquaman, besides the
Aquaman: The Death of a Prince storyline, many people used the animated
Wonder Woman as an example of simply making an original animated feature and not using a specific graphic novel for inspiration.
So just why exactly is WB pushing out Batman and Superman animated features one after another? Let's look inside the numbers for the answers.
(2008) Justice League: The New Frontier - 215,757 units sold/ $3,749,220 initial 2 week sale total
(2008) Batman: Gotham Knight - 298,079 units sold / $6,127,213 initial 2 week sale total
(2009) Wonder Woman - 142,954 units sold / $2,743,287 initial 2 week sale total
(2009) Green Lantern: First Flight - 206,464 units sold / $3,448,025 initial 2 week sale total
(2009) Superman/Batman: Public Enemies - 255,383 units sold / $4,253,977 initial 2 week sale total
(2010) Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths - 260,821 units sold / $4,012,873 initial 2 week sale total
(2010) Batman: Under the Red Hood - 222,599 units sold / $3,486,749 initial 2 week sale total
(2010) Superman/Batman: Apocalypse - 195,124 units sold / $3,358,084 initial 2 week sale total
(2011) All-Star Superman - 149,824 units sold / $2,483,655 initial 2 week sale total
(2011) Green Lantern: Emerald Knights - 122,396 units sold / $1,779,756 initial 2 week sale total
(2011) Batman: Year One - 91,355 units sold / $1,340,250 initial 2 week sale total
Now before everyone points to the sale totals for Batman: Year One, keep in mind that a significant portion of the sales for that movie were on Blu-Ray. The next lowest units sold totals were for movies featuring Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Superman. Meanwhile, at the other end, the top selling movies were those featuring Batman and the Justice League. Based on those hard facts, it's easy to see why Warner Bro.'s upcoming animated film slate is Justice League: Doom, Superman Versus The Elite and The Dark Knight Returns. It's not the fact that there's a lack of great source material to draw from, it's the fact that they tried the "non-Batman" experiment before and that just didn't work out. It's really a shame too, both Wonder Woman and Emerald Knights were fantastic films that should've achieved better numbers. Heck, even Superman doesn't pull the numbers he should without partnering up with Batman. Which is why I say the best chance of getting a Green Arrow or Aquaman centered movie is to partner them up with the Batman. Anyone know of any great Aquaman/Batman or Green Arrow/Batman graphic novels?
Bruce Walter Timm (born on February 8, 1961) is an American character designer, animator and producer. He is also a writer and artist working in comics, and is known for his contributions building the modern DC Comics animated franchise, the DC animated universe.
Timm's early career in animation was varied; he started at Filmation, working on the layout of Blackstar, Flash Gordon, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and its spin-off She-Ra: Princess of Power, and The Lone Ranger (Timm also did background work on G.I. Joe). He also worked for numerous other employers, including Ralph Bakshi, Don Bluth Productions, and attempted to find work at Marvel Comics and DC Comics, but without luck. In 1989, Timm joined Warner Bros. At Warner, Timm worked on Tiny Toon Adventures.
However, Timm is best known for his subsequent work on the animated series based on various DC Comics superheroes, popularly referred to as the "DCAU" (DC animated universe). Along with his Tiny Toons partner Eric Radomski, Timm co-created and produced Batman: The Animated Series, which premiered on September 5, 1992, and went on to co-create and produce Superman: The Animated Series (premiered in September 1996), The New Batman Adventures (premiered in September 1997), and Batman Beyond (premiered in January 1999). He also served as producer on the feature-length Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker before taking the helm as creator and producer of the animated version of Justice League, which debuted in November 2001. This series continued in the form of Justice League Unlimited. Timm actually had very little to do with the production of the Teen Titans animated series, though because of a mistake in the first season end credits he is often mistaken for an executive producer. Timm was also the producer and co-director of the direct-to-video Superman Doomsday.
Although he shared character designer duties on Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League with James Tucker, Timm did virtually all the original character designs for Batman: The Animated Series himself (with the exceptions of Mr. Freeze and the Riddler, who were designed by Mike Mignola and the characters Man Bat and the Mad Hatter, who were designed by Kevin Nowlan).
DC universe animated series, including Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Batman Beyond, and other DC-set works associated with Timm (and his collaborators') art styles are often referred to by fans as "The Timmverse" of DC comics, relating to those series' distillation of popular storylines from the comic book versions or the outright introduction of new characters or relationships (such as Harley Quinn, alterations to The Question's personality and background, or Batman and Wonder Woman's romantic fling).
His 2008 project Batman: Gotham Knight is a departure from the "Timmverse" style, with Timm in a producer role collaborating with Japanese animators on a direct-to-DVD anthology that takes place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
Though Timm does not usually work as an actor, he has played several characters in the animated series he has been involved in. His cameos include the episode of Batman: The Animated Series, "Beware the Gray Ghost", playing the toy shop owner, as himself in the episode of The New Batman Adventures, "Holiday Knights", and also as the leader of the Jokerz gang in Batman Beyond, which he joked he did under duress and also joked was 'Emmy-Award Winning material'. More recently, he appeared in an animated form in Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode Legends of the Dark Mite in a comic book convention parody scene, where he was wearing Joker's costume, along with Paul Dini wearing Harley Quinn's costume. Prior to that he was animated in The Batman, appearing as a mental patient in Arkham. He has also played a guard in the direct-to-video animated film, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker.
Timm made a cameo appearance in the 2009 film Green Lantern: First Flight as Bug Boy, and played The Riddler in the 2010 film Batman: Under the Red Hood.