Comic-Con 2007 :: 'Superman Doomsday' Premiere

Superman Doomsday

Thursday Night's
Big Event!

It's the main event: Superman vs. Doomsday in a no-holds-barred fight to the finish! And Comic-Con attendees get to see it first, almost two whole months before it debuts on DVD!

Thursday night's big event in Ballroom 20 is the world premiere of the eagerly awaited first-ever DC Universe animated movie from DC Comics and Warner Bros. Animation. Produced by Bruce Timm (Justice League Unlimited, Batman: The Animated Series) and written by Duane Capizzi (The Batman), Superman Doomsday is inspired by the best-selling graphic novel of all time, DC's The Death of Superman. The complete 70+ minute movie will be shown along with a panel featuring the film's creators. Superman Doomsday features the voices of Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Serenity) as Superman, Anne Heche (Men In Trees) as Lois Lane, and James Marsters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Lex Luthor, and is rated PG-13.

We talked with producer and animation legend Bruce Timm about this new film.

CCI: How did the PG-13 rating and the extended time impact the way you told the Superman Doomsday story?

BT: We had done direct-to-video features before, so that wasn't a major issue in terms of the length. The PG-13 thing was interesting. Honestly, on Justice League and pretty much all of our shows, we really hadn't been trying to limit the kinds of stories we've been telling just for a kid audience. We always had to keep in mind that our core demographic was 6-11 year-olds. At the same time, however, in our hearts we were actually making the shows for ourselves.

So here, knowing that we're actually going for a much more adult tone across the board, and not being worried about being restricted to kid friendly subject matter, it was actually quite liberating. And in a weird kind of way, we actually found ourselves almost having to force ourselves to "age-up" some of the story elements, because our first couple of pitches on the storyline, everybody kept saying, 'Well this is fine, but it still doesn't seem any more extreme than what you could get in an episode of Justice League.'

CCI: In Superman Doomsday, you're telling an epic story that was serialized over many comics. Which elements can fans expect to see?

BT: It follows the basic structure of the entire story arc (The Death of Superman, World Without A Superman and The Return of Superman). The first third of the movie pretty much covers up to the actual death of Superman storyline pretty closely, with certain modifications just because of time limits or whatever.

From that point on, it stays true to the structure of the storyline but a lot of the details had to be changed. Again, because of the short amount of time we had to tell the entire story. It's tough to talk about without spoiling it, but you're definitely going to see some of the most giant scale brutal battle scenes that we've ever done in animation, both at the beginning and end of the movie.

The core emotional heart of the story is basically seen through Lois' eyes, but in the second and third acts, the main part of the story is how did the world react to the loss of Superman.

CCI: Are there other DC heroes in it?

BT: No. We were pretty much treating this as if it was a stand-alone Superman movie, not connected to any other continuity. Superman is the only hero in this movie. It just makes the story stronger and more focused.