Sam Liu Reveals Details About DC's Upcoming Animated Film BATMAN: YEAR ONE
Exclusive: The All Star Superman director offers a bit of insight into the company's next animated adaptation, including what was added to the film to augment the comic series' storyline.
Batman: Year One -- otherwise known simply as Year One -- is a 1987 comic book story arc written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli. The story recounts the beginning of Bruce Wayne's career as Batman and Jim Gordon's with the Gotham City Police Department. Bruce returns home from training abroad in martial arts, manhunting, and science for the past 12 years, while Gordon moves to Gotham with his wife, Barbara, after a transfer from Chicago. Both are swiftly acquainted with the corruption and violence of Gotham City, and vow to make a difference in their own way.
DC Universe Animated Original Movies is tackling the fan-favorite storyline as their next project after Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and All-Star Superman, and the film's director Sam Liu was kind enough to offer a few updates on the project:
"We have initial footage in; it's not 100 % complete right now. Lauren [Montgomery ] and I are co-directing Year One and I have since been moved off onto the Green Lantern series, so I feel bad because she's doing most of the heavy lifting right now. I try to do as little what I can... So far, it's quite good."
In regards to the comics accuracy of the adaptation, Liu stated that the company is staying very faithful to Miller's work. But one change in particular should help incorporate backstory to the tale, while adding a bit of originality:
"[It] was mandated from the beginning that this was going to be straight to the point and not to waiver from the story. Actually, the graphic novel itself is a little bit short. Normally we're taking like 12 issues of something and kind of like compress it, and in this case it's a pretty short graphic novel so we were actually under.
"What we had to do was add a short on top of it. So, instead of just creating some thing to put into the story; we decided to just end it where it ends and then just add something else."
No release date has been set for Batman: Year One; while All Star Superman, featuring the voice talents of James Denton and Christina Hendricks, hits stores this week and Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is scheduled to be released June 7th, 2011.
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Pietro Filipponi
Managing Editor
As much as I'm kinda tired of all the Batman-centric animated films, this is such a good story and so different from what's already been out. I'm really looking forward to it
Phinehas
I'm not saying that I won't watch it. But really??? What about the other heroes? That haven't even had a "Showcase?"
***Cough***Flash***Cough***
wheels1.5
Personally, I'm tired of all the 'direct-to-video-adaptations'. Most of us have read those stories. Plus, Batman Begins was already an amalgamation of Year One and Son of the Demon (without trimming down either story). Have they completely lost their nerve to come up with something original and release it to theatres? The closest thing to original I've seen is Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. The only reason I can think that wouldn't make that movie work in theatres is the lack of a backstory explaining Terry's relationship to Bruce and Terry's motivation. 'Under the Red Hood' was okay because they connected two storylines, but they still cut out a LOT of details from the source material, which is my biggest pet peeve about them all.
CrossTheGrigori
I'm all for putting great story arcs into animation, but this has been done already and I'm not going to trust the person who screwed up All Star Superman when he says this is good. (I'm also worried about his involvement with the GL animated show)
I think people still hunger for Batman, so they have to do something with him... but why not The Dark Knight Returns or Killing Joke? Why not do Knightfall? There are GREAT stories out there to be told in a cinematic way. I think that's why I actually liked The Brave and the Bold cartoon show. It was different. Yeah, it was Adam West Batman, but it was not the same old thing.
I love direct to DVD because it gets a product out there faster and animation doesn't always do well in theaters. I wasn't very happy with Gotham Knights, but it was ok.
TorturedXGenius
i would like to see if DC has the 'fortitude' to do "Identity Crisis"
Darkneo
They should give Green Arrow a animated movie release. The short I saw last year was pretty good.
Dman7
Another Batman Animated movie and not even 1 flash movie. Jeez, talk about milking a character to death.