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Backstage - Bruce Timm Interview
Executive Producer Bruce Timm sets the record straight on DC
Universe Animated Original Movies
and Batman: Under the Red Hood
 Who’s under the
Red Hood? Bruce Timm knows, but he’s not telling. However, he answers a bevy of
other questions in an interesting Q&A focused on the upcoming release of
Batman: Under the Red Hood, the latest entry in the ongoing series of DC
Universe Animated Original PG-13 Movies.
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.
Suggested captions for attached images:
BTimm
2010.jpg
Bruce Timm serves as Executive Producer for Batman: Under the
Red Hood, the next DC Universe animated original movie. The film will be
distributed July 27, 2010 by Warner Home Video. (Photo courtesy of Gary Miereanu)
Bat_2_Crooks.jpg
Batman secures two criminals before taking on a
much larger, brutal force in Batman: Under the Red Hood, the next DC
Universe animated original movie. The film will be distributed July 27, 2010 by
Warner Home Video.
Robin_Glass.jpg
Robin makes a grand entrance
in Batman: Under the Red Hood, the next DC Universe animated original
movie. The film will be distributed July 27, 2010 by Warner Home Video.
RH_03.jpg
Part vigilante and part crime lord, Red Hood isn't afraid to
spill some blood to achieve his objectives in Batman: Under the Red Hood,
the next DC Universe animated original movie. The film will be distributed July
27, 2010 by Warner Home Video.
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