DC Announces New Superman/Batman Animated Film

Disc Announcements, News

When it comes to movies, DC Comics has nothing on Marvel — their rival publisher.

Jonah Hex was an uncontested box-office bomb, The Losers did not fair much better and Green Lantern, DC Comics’ next theatrical adaptation, is still a year away. There is one division of the comic publisher’s entertainment field, though, that is hard at work churning out new projects of a consistently good quality: DC’s animated film department.

DC Entertainment has announced that their next feature-length animated film will be Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. A sequel to 2009’s Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Apocalypse adapts a storyline from the Superman/Batman comic book series originally written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Michael Turner.

In the movie, Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy will reprise their roles as Superman and Batman with Summer Glau joining the cast as Supergirl.

Essentially an origin story for Supergirl, Apocalypse sees Superman’s cousin arrive on Earth for the first time and deal with acclimating to her new superpowers. Trouble brews when galactic supervillian Darkseid kidnaps the teen hero and brainwashes her into becoming his latest evil warrior.

Much like Public Enemies drew on the art style of its comic book source material originally illustrated by Ed McGuinness, the cover art for Apocalypse seems to suggest the new film will be influenced heavily by artwork from Turner — an artist primarily known for co-creating Witchblade.

The only extra feature for the straight-to-DVD movie known at this time is a short film staring Green Arrow and featuring the voice of Neil McDonough.

Rumored upcoming future projects for DC Animation include an adaptation of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One and a sequel to 2009’s Green Lantern animated film.

Batman: Under the Red Hood, DC’s next animated film, will be released on July 27 and features the voices of Bruce Greenwood, Jensen Ackles, Neil Patrick Harris and John DiMaggio.

The Buzz: It sure appears like DC is moving more towards adapting specific storylines for their future full-length animated movies. I have to say I love this idea. There are a ton of great DC books that logistically would be a nightmare to make as a live-action full-length film. An animated adaptation is, without a doubt, the next best thing.

Some storylines I hope DC considers adapting in the future are Kingdom Come, All Star Superman, Batman: The Long Halloween and The Dark Knight Returns. What are some comics you’d love to see DC tackle next?

Robert Saucedo is an avid movie watcher with seriously poor sleeping habits. The Mikey from Life cereal of film fans, Robert will watch just about anything — good, bad or ugly. He has written about film for newspapers, radio and online for the last 10 years. This has taken a toll on his sanity — of that you can be sure. Follow him on Twitter at @robsaucedo2500.