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CCI: Superman Doomsday was an epic story, told by many people in its original comics presentation. New Frontier is also an epic story, but it's the vision of one creator, Darwyn Cooke, paying tribute to the comics he loved as a kid. How true to his story is the final film?

Gregory: Let me that in two parts. The original Superman Doomsday wasn't actually Superman Doomsday. It was "The Death of Superman," "A World Without Superman," and then "Return of Superman," from which we then adapted and then drew storyline and a set of characters, and obviously lost a lot of characters and material. But that ultimately became Superman Doomsday.

New Frontier is New Frontier. As opposed to being an inspiration of, or a near adaptation of, we really tried as best as possible to reflect the look, the tone, the setting, the characters, and obviously that storyline that Darwyn had in the book. Obviously, to get 400 pages of material that we're trying to condense down to 72 or 74 minutes not everything that is in the book is in the movie. Having said that I will say that virtually everything in the movie is in the book.

CCI: Since Darwyn Cooke got his start in animation, how involved was he with the production of New Frontier?

Gregory: He was very involved. Initially, this started when I read New Frontier and just fell in love with it. It was really some of the best comic book storytelling I had seen in 10 years, in particular in dealing with the Justice League and an "origin of Justice League" type story and setting. So, I really fell in love with it and when we started talking about doing the DC Universe animated line of movies, this was the first thing that I said we had to do (as) a Justice League story.

Luckily people agreed, so when I called Darwyn to let him know and said, "Hey, you know we're going to do this line of animated movies," and he said, "Uh- huh'.," and I said, "We're going to do New Frontier," and he said, "Uh, okay." I don't think he believed me. So I told him that we were seriously going to do this, and he replied something like "Oh, okay, great, look I know it's hard, it's period but there are things I think I can do to adjust it," and I said no, I wanted to keep it period. So at that point I think he probably really did believe me.

From that point on we kept saying that this is really happening and he got very involved. He was very involved in a lot of the character designs. He did a fairly strong polish on Stan Berkowitz's script, which even though Stan did a phenomenal job of adapting the material, Darwyn had an eye for certain things that he wanted to emphasize which I think were right on.

He has been consulting all along the way, so he's been very involved. He is as involved as he wants to be and we certainly want him to be as involved as he can.

CCI: Your secret weapon in this new series of direct-to-DVD movies seems to be Bruce Timm, who has been involved in virtually every DC to TV animated project since the early 90s. How important is he to this new endeavor?

Gregory: Very, very important. Bruce is two things: he's a fan and he's a perfectionist. As a fan he really wants these things to be good, he loves these things. As a perfectionist he hates everything, (laughs) nothing is good enough, not his own stuff, not anybody else's stuff. Citizen Kane, maybe is decent.

So he's crucially important. He and I have gotten into some very heated, but very good discussions, creative discussions about where to emphasis certain things, where to push certain things. I think only when you're really passionate about something creatively can you get into that kind of a deep, strong discussion on various points. So he's crucially important, not to mention extremely talented.

CCI: Superman Doomsday has just come out as we conduct this interview. Do you have any idea at this point of how successful it is?

Gregory: At this point, crossing my fingers, it seems to be quite successful. I can't really reveal any numbers or information, but I will say that so far, so good, everyone involved seems to be very, very happy.

I think that Duane (Capizzi) and Bruce really did a great job with it. I mean when I look at the fan reaction online a lot of the negative reaction seems to be that we didn't follow the "Death of Superman" storyline so closely and frankly I think we elicited that reaction by mistake in the way we positioned it and the way we marketed the piece by saying it was an adaptation of "Death of Superman." Really, we probably should have said it was an inspiration, or it's an interpretation of the story, but it ain't the comic that people will remember from years ago.

I think we did try to say that, but people got so excited when they thought they'd get to see Hawk and Dove or .. well, part of the criticism online to me is a little funny, in that they say they miss the Justice League, but I think, they should go back to the comic and tell me which of those characters they actually miss.

Having said that, my favorite part of the piece is that middle act, when Superman's gone and how all the different characters are reacting to the idea of the world without Superman.

We also thought it would be important that the relationship between Superman and Lois Lane was still in the early stage and that there would be hurdles to overcome. So the idea that she knows exactly who he is, and he knows she knows exactly who he is but won't admit it, we thought was a very adult and mature theme in a piece like this.

CCI: Some of the other direct to DVD movies announced are Wonder Woman, Batman Anime, and Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (Editor's note: none of these are official titles). Is there anything else in the pipeline that you're considering at this point?

Gregory: We're considering a lot, there are a lot of things in development. It's just a question of which scripts come when and what sort of things are ready. I mean with those that you've mentioned we have about a year and a half of stuff to come out. We have a little bit of lead time before we really need to make a decision of what will come after that. But certainly, right now, and if results from Doomsday are any indication, we're definitely going to do more.

I would love, personally, to expand beyond the core DC brand, maybe find a couple of Vertigo titles, WildStorm titles, or lesser known characters in the DC Universe, but having said that, I don't know if we'll be able to, but I'd love to. I think that would be fun.

CCI: Comic-Con hosted the world premiere of Superman Doomsday in July. WonderCon will do the same for Justice League: The New Frontier in February. How important are these convention screenings for you?

Gregory: Hugely important. On the one hand, the whole intent of this line of movies is … well coming to it as a fan myself I very selfishly was pushing to do animated movies that are geared to fans like me. And while Bruce's work on Justice League and Justice League Unlimited is phenomenal and great and I watch them like everyone else, you still had to make a concession to the eight year old and the six year old. (I) thoroughly enjoyed it, and as a viewer know this is great, but wouldn't it be terrific if they could be a little more mature and relate to me the way the comic books do.

In that sense, to be able to present Doomsday and New Frontier to that audience, that core fan audience, is vitally important, to get their feedback as well. When we were at Comic-Con and screened Doomsday and got really enthusiastic response and then I presented that three-minute teaser we did on New Frontier, people in the audience were cheering and clapping when they saw the names David Boreanaz and Lucy Lawless. I mean, that's great feedback. It means we didn't screw up too badly, yet.

CCI: Warner Bros. recently announced a new online animation experience, T-Works, which will feature key characters from across the Warners companies, including DC Comics. Will we see new DC material in this venue?

Gregory: I think we will see new and adapted material in the venue. I'm not quite sure how it's all going to play out or how those pieces might be. But absolutely that's the intent. I'm not being vague, it's just early on in the process and figuring out technologies and who crosses over where and what can we do. So yes, I do suspect that in time things will be done specifically for T-Works, stuff that's adapted for T-Works that may have appeared elsewhere and stuff that may premiere on T-Works whose ultimate destination may be elsewhere.