With Merry Little Batman now streaming on Prime Video, we were able to sit down with director Mike Roth to get more insight into the new DC holiday film, that features the voices of Luke Wilson (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Yonas Kibreab (Damian Wayne/Little Batman), James Cromwell (Alfred Pennyworth), and David Hornsby (The Joker).
Roth breaks down where the idea for the film originated and what went into casting the main roles. Plus, he also reveals whether there were ever any plans to introduce more members of the extended Bat-family, while also sharing a small update on the upcoming Bat-Family spinoff series.
Watch our full interview with director Mike Roth below and/or keep scrolling to read the full transcript! Plus, please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: Where did the idea for this film stem from? What conversations did you have about taking Damian Wayne and making him unlike any other version of Damien we’ve ever seen before?
MIKE: Yeah, I think, very early on, we wanted to tell a Christmas story. and not just something where Christmas was the backdrop, but Christmas is actually the driving force behind the story. So, as we're looking at who do we tell the story through and, it felt important to us, that since it is Christmas, to tell it through the eyes of a child, and then, we arrived at Damien, because, in canon, he's Batman son. And, then we took Damian, and we just aged him down a little bit, so he's a little bit less of a petulant teenager, thirteen-year-old, and he's a little bit more of like a precocious eight-year-old. He gets himself in trouble the way you'd expect Damian would, but in an innocent way.
ROHAN: The film has a very interesting and unexpected cast with Luke Wilson as Batman, James Cromwell as Alfred, and David Hornsby as the Joker, but they’re all so well suited for their roles. What went into the process of casting these iconic roles?
MIKE: I think, again, it all comes back to what the story needed, and we needed a Bruce - like our Bruce isn't so much this brooding, dark presence, you know, our Bruce is a dad, he's in full dad mode, he has a beard, he's got flannel, he's kind of a doting father in a lot of ways. So, we needed a little bit more of that warmth. Our Batman property also leans into the humor, so we needed someone to have that kind of comic touch to it as well, and we were really lucky to get Luke because he embodied both those things. He brought so much touching warmth to the character, but he also brought the humor that we needed. For Damian, we wanted the world to feel very real, where like paper cuts hurt and anvils will actually kill you, so it was important for us, we wanted a child actor, right? We wanted it to feel genuine and authentic, a nd for us, a lot of the humor and fun comes out of having a child, you know, do the voice, so, that's where that came from. And James Cromwell, I mean, James is James man, he's just so talented, you know, and he just delivered such a great Alfred. And, then David Hornsby, Joker was a very complicated character for us, because he has all these different change-ups, and he goes from like super happy to super angry and murderous, and we needed those quick change-ups and David delivered that.
ROHAN: This film features so many different members of Batman’s rogues gallery, but were there ever any plans to include more of the Bat-family like Nightwing and Batgirl? Or, even someone like Damian’s mother Talia?
MIKE: Yeah, we explored all those different things, trying to figure out, again, you know, what does this story need? And then, from there, what can we put in? As nerds - and I'm a nerd - of course, you want to see everybody with this cool, interesting comic style that we have, so we had to limit ourselves a little bit in the movie, but fortunately, we are now working on a 22-minute, action adventure comedy series that's going to be coming out on Prime Video, and we're in the very early stages of production on that. So, in there, we're gonna get to explore even more of the world, more Gotham, more villains, more characters and we're gonna be introducing some more members to the Wayne family household.
This Christmas, Damian Wayne wants to be a superhero like his dad—the one and only Batman. When Damian is left home alone while Batman takes on Gotham's worst supervillains on Christmas Eve, he stumbles upon a villainous plot to steal Christmas and leaps at the chance to save the day.
Merry Little Batman is now streaming on Prime Video!