SDCC: A Look Back and Forward at DC Universe Animated Original Movies

July 26, 2008 on 6:11 pm | In Comics, Movies, San Diego Comic Con |

The fans at San Diego Comic Con waited in eager anticipation for the look back and forward at the critically acclaimed DC Universe animated movies. The panel was moderated by DC Comics senior Vice President of creative affairs Gregory Noveck and included DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz, DCU films executive producer Bruce Timm, director Lauren Montgomery, voice director Andrea Romano and surprise guest and voice actor in the upcoming Wonder Woman animated feature Nathan Fillion.

A year ago was the premiere of Superman/Doomsday, and today they’re officially announcing the Wonder Woman movie coming to DVD in February of 2009. Before showing a clip of the highly anticipated film, Gregory Noveck asked the panel to recap on how the DC Universe Animated Original Movies came to be.

“We got to the point where it was clear we had an opportunity to do animation that was not just there to fill space in between commercials.” said Paul Levitz, “This isn’t about making an advertiser happy, let’s make the best thing that we can and get it into the hands of our fans.”

Levitz continued to recap the short but amazing history of the franchise, detailing work on Superman/Doomsday, New Frontier, and Dark Knight.

“One of the things we’ve tried to do with these movies is bring in some stellar voice talent,” said Gregory Noveck, “Now for Wonder Woman, Nathan Fillion is voicing Steve Trevor and reteaming with Keri Russell as Princess Diana, Alfred Molina, it’s a pretty stellar cast.”

Noveck then announced that Superman/Doomsday will be re-released November 25 on a special edition Blu-Ray disc with 128 minutes of extra content including 4 of Bruce Timm’s hand-picked favorite Superman the Animated Series. After cheers from the audience, Gregory Noveck continued to give details about Wonder Woman. The film is going to premiere at A-Kon, and it’s an original Wonder Woman story, but based on a story by Gail Simone, who was in attendance and stood up amongst cheers from the audience, and written by Michael Jelenic. He then announced other cast members Rosario Dawson as Artemis, Virginia Madsen as Hippolyta and Oliver Platt as Hades.

When asked about how she decided on casting, Andrea Romano commented, “I had just seen Waitress, and I had worked with Nathan before and known how great an actor he was.” She continued, “There had to be this innocence of coming into man’s world, and that was beautifully put together.”

Romano then told a story where Oliver Platt was recording and was forced to shed a noisy, rustling shirt.

Nathan Fillion commented on the excellent job that the creative team had done with Wonder Woman.

“One thing that you guys did really well was giving us a female character who is incredibly strong and incredibly heroic and doesn’t try to be a man,” he said, “I think Keri [Russell] does that very well.”

On the creation of Wonder Woman as a character, Lauren Montgomery mentioned, “I wanted to make her an amazon,” she said. “She’s not a weigh-lifting he/she, she has muscle and she has definition without being too manly. I wanted to make her respectable. We were trying to give her a very Greek looking influence so we played around with her profile and her chin line.”

Noveck then came back to mention that Wonder Woman will be available in Two-Disc, Single Disc, Blu-Ray formats with bonus features, and joked, “We’re going to ask Nathan to reenact Oliver’s recording for you.”

The panel then showed a very short clip of the new feature which was short, but amazing. It showed Wonder Woman adorning her boots, bracelets, and tiara, and facing various warriors and monsters in amazing animation. It showed everything from mythical monsters to Greek soldiers getting the pulp beaten out of them by Wonder Woman. The clip finished with the tagline, “Justice Never Looked So Good,” and Keri Russel’s voice saying, “It’s not polite to hit a lady.”

The panel then opened it up for general questions.

When asked about future Batman films, specifically Knightfall, Bruce Timm responded, “I can guarantee you we will. Knightfall is not currently on the schedule.”

The team was asked about many, many possibilities for animation adaptions including Kingdom Come.

“If you guys want to see Kingdom Come, you want to see it look like Kingdom Come. When we can make it look like that for less than $174 billion, we will deliver it,” said Gregory Noveck.

When asked about the level of action, Lauren Montgomery mentioned, “There’s a lot of battles in this due to Michael Jelenic,” she said, “There’s a lot of violence in it, but it’s only the necessary violence.

Wonder Woman will be released in February of next year.