Batman: Under the Red Hood is just the latest finished product to come
from Timm’s canon of super hero vehicles at Warner Bros. Animation. A
veritable legend among the creative forces in animation today, Timm
has spearheaded the elevation of DC Comics’ characters to new heights
of animated popularity and introduced generations of new fans to the
characters via landmark television series and made-for-DVD films. The
latter task includes the creation of the current series of DC Universe
Animated Original Movies, which now number eight in total and each has
been greeted with critical acclaim and nifty sales. Batman: Under the
Red Hood will no doubt send more fans to the comic book stores
clamoring for caped entertainment.
From the producing triumvirate of Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment
and Warner Bros. Animation, Batman: Under the Red Hood will be
distributed by Warner Home Video as a Special Edition version on
Blu-Ray™ and 2-disc DVD, as well as being available on single disc
DVD, On Demand and for Download.
Timm paused long enough in his unthinkably busy schedule for a few
cigarettes and a battery of questions, responding in true Timm form –
whether it be discussing the casting and art direction, revealing his
across-the-board love for all versions of Batman, or setting the
record straight on quotes attributed to him from a certain widely
reported interview-that-never-was. This is vintage Bruce Timm – read
what the man has to say …
QUESTION: What made Brandon Vietti the right director for Batman:
Under the Red Hood?
BRUCE TIMM: Brandon is one of our up-and-coming director/producer
types who has been with (Warner Bros. Animation) for a while. I’ve
known him for years – he actually worked for me back on the
Superman/Batman series – and I’ve watched him work his way up from
being a top storyboard guy to a director. His work on the first third
of Superman Doomsday was very powerful. When we were looking around
for a director for this film, Brandon was very anxious to do something
completely on his own, and I knew he was ready.
The thing about Brandon is that, besides just being talented, he’s
super, super thorough. He’s very detail oriented. So it was a relief
to me to have someone like Brandon in charge, because I could pretty
much leave it up to him to run the show and I knew he wasn’t going to make any missteps. The end result is a very good film across the board
in terms of action, emotion and design.
QUESTION: How did Judd Winick convince you that his comic
series/graphic novel would translate well to an animated film?
BRUCE TIMM: When we first heard that Judd wanted to pitch Red Hood as
an adaptation for our DC Universe film line, Alan Burnett and I
quickly got copies of the book and read through it. My first
impression was that it was an entertaining comic, but it was quite a
long mini-series and it had all these tangents of supporting
characters who came and went through the course of the story. Quite
frankly, it was confusing to me and I kept thinking to myself that I
didn’t see how a lot of those things would work. The big thing about
the story is that it’s a sequel to a big event in the history of DC
comics – the death of Robin that happened back in the 1980s – and I
didn’t see how we could set that up, because it all hinges on being a
sequel to that story. Furthermore, the way the pitch was arranged, we
were in a room in Burbank and Judd was in San Francisco and had to
pitch over the speakerphone. But amazingly, every single problem I
thought we’d have trouble making into a movie, Judd had fixed in the
pitch. Judd had already clearly put a lot of thought into the entire
film – how to stay focused on the main story, how to clean up the
death of Robin thing, and how to eliminate all the extra baggage. He
pitched for about 45 minutes and when he was done, Alan and I looked
at each other and said, “Yeah, that’s a movie. Let’s do it.” And away
we meant.
QUESTION: Batman Gotham Knight was a collection of short stories
loosely tied together and produced in anime. What made Batman: Under
the Red Hood the right story to be the first true Batman movie in the
DC Universe animated franchise?
BRUCE TIMM: Seeing that this was going to be our first full-length
Batman movie in the DC Universe line, we thought we really needed to
have a strong story that wasn’t just another adventure story or a
caper that Batman foils. We wanted it to be something that truly
needed to be told in a PG-13 venue that had a fair amount of, for lack
of a better term, adult content that you couldn’t normally do on
television. And this story is loaded with it. It’s also a personal
story to Batman – it does have an adventure plot and a crime plot, but
the emotional arc of the story is rooted in Batman’s messed up history
with family relations. And especially in our animated universe, Batman
always had a kind of dysfunctional family dynamic going on. He’s
famously an orphan, he’s got Alfred as his surrogate mother/father,
he’s always bringing in surrogate sons to mentor, and it always kind
of goes badly. And this is, once again, one of the big expressions of
that. So it makes for compelling drama as well as an exciting
adventure.
QUESTION: A few casting questions. Why Bruce Greenwood as Batman?
BRUCE TIMM: It’s always a challenge to cast Batman because we
invariably have to ask ourselves, “Who can we find out there who can
hold their own against the legend of Kevin Conroy?” I’ve been
following the career of Bruce Greenwood for a long time – I’ve seen
him in a zillion movies and TV shows, and he’s always struck me as an
actor who has this excellent, interesting voice and impeccable acting
chops. And around the same time we were casting this film, I saw the
trailer for the J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek – and there was Bruce
Greenwood. So we tracked him down, he was agreeable, a great guy to
work with, and he totally knocked it out of the park.
QUESTION: John DiMaggio has played many comical villains. How did you
know he’d be best as a villain who is also comical?
BRUCE TIMM: The Joker is a very iconic part memorably voiced by Mark
Hamill, and played in films by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger. Those
are really big shoes to fill. John is a guy we’ve worked with for
years playing tons of different kinds of parts, and every time we use
him I think, “God, we’ve got to give this guy a bigger part.” He
shouldn’t just be Thug #2 or the monster that Wonder Woman fights. We
needed to give him a part that he could sink his teeth into. This
Joker came up and it really required somebody who has comedic chops
but also is a really good actor, and DiMaggio has got that in spades.
He was definitely the right guy for the part. He came in and did
something that didn’t sound anything like Mark Hamill or Jack
Nicholson or Heath Ledger or Cesar Romero, and yet he sounds exactly
like the Joker. He’s funny, and he’s scary as hell, and that’s just
what you want.
QUESTION: What did Jensen Ackles bring to the table as Red Hood?
BRUCE TIMM: Red Hood is such a pivotal role in that he needed to be
somebody who was forceful, threatening, weirdly sympathetic, and also
had to be of a certain age. Not too young, not too old, just right.
Andrea and I both knew of Jensen’s work, and he was one of those guys
we had in our “Gotta work with that guy some day” file. And he fit the
bill perfectly. He’s got an intensity in the booth that really matched
the material.
QUESTION: Were there any surprises along the way?
BRUCE TIMM: One of the things I like the most about this movie is
that, in the best possible ways, it kind of reminds me of a weird mesh
of the Batman Beyond movie, Return of the Joker, and our first Batman:
The Animated Series feature film, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. It has
a lot of the same kinds of themes, it has the same level of serious
drama in it, and the same level of really good character development.
I think it’s actually fully the equal of those two movies. It’s
dynamite.
Another interesting takeaway I got from this movie is that Brandon and
I agreed that we really wanted to work to give this movie a unique
visual feel. We deliberately tried to not make it look like Batman:
The Animated Series. We tried a number of things in the art direction
to stay away from that. But no matter what we did, it still kind of
looks like Batman: The Animated Series. It’s weird. So when you watch
the movie, there will be about four or five minutes in a row where
you’ll forget about the different cast and slightly different
character designs and it actually kind of feels like the series. On
another level, there is a certain influence from the Christopher Nolan
movies. It’s kind of in the tone of the film and the way Batman
himself is treated and the feel of Gotham City. It’s not quite as
realistic – our Gotham City is a little more stylized than the Gotham
of the Nolan movies – but there is similarity in tone, which makes for
a very interesting Batman salad.
QUESTION: Judd Winick said his first introduction to Batman was the
Adam West TV series, but that he knew even as a kid that it wasn’t the
Batman he wanted to see. You’ve said that was your same entry point to
the character – did you ever have the same sense of Batman’s
positioning?
BRUCE TIMM: Yes, my first exposure to Batman as a character was Batman
the TV series. But honestly, I didn’t know it was supposed to be a
parody or campy. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Of
course, I was 5 at the time. But all in one fell swoop, I became an
instant super hero fan. Later on, as I got older and started reading
more comics and getting into the super hero scene, I realized that the
Batman show was kind of a comedy. I was reading Neal Adams comics and
thinking, “Batman is kind of cooler than that show – he’s kind of
scary and mysterious.” So my perception of Batman changed over time,
and then I went through the periods with Frank Miller and the Tim
Burton movies. So now I’ve got these warring Batmans in my head. I
still love the Adam West/Batman show. I still love the Neal Adams take
on Batman comics. I still love The Dark Knight. All of these things
totally contradict each other, and yet it’s fine to me. I’ve said it
over and over again – Batman as a character is such a strong concept,
he’s the kind of character that you can take him in any number of ways
and it still feels right. Batman: The Animated Series is a really good
version of Batman. Batman: The Brave and the Bold – that’s a really
good version of Batman. They have equal value.
QUESTION: There’s been a lot of internet banter regarding the
discontinuation of the DCU series based on quotes attributed to an
interview in Calgary with you. True or false?
BRUCE TIMM: Kinda false. First of all, it wasn't an actual one-on-one
interview -- quotes were taken out of context from longer answers I
gave on a panel at the Expo. Bottom line: the DCU films are definitely
continuing. We've got projects lined up for the next two years at the
very least – lots of films in different stages of development and
production. I know there are a lot of rumors circulating about future
films. Some are true, some are not. I'll tell you this much – anyone
at our DCU/Batman: Under the Red Hood panel at Comic-Con will walk
away with a very clear picture of the direction we're taking the DCU
animated movies in the coming year.