Wonder Woman,Batman Direct-to-DVD
Origins Story for Amazon, Bruce Wayne Gets Anime-style Makeover
DC Comics plans direct-to-DVD animated movies for Wonder Woman and Batman. Batman movie may bridge story gap between live-action films Batman Begins and the Dark Knight.
Comic book/anime site ICv2 managed to get their hands on possible internal Warner Bros. documents which discussed upcoming animated direct-to-DVD movies featuring DC Comics' iconic superheroes.
Warner has been jonesing to get into the biz ever since they saw Marvel Comics make big bucks putting titles like The Fantastic Four into animated, direct-to-DVD movies.
However, first release Superman: Doomsday hasn't even hit stores (Warner Home Video is talking a mid-September debut) and neither Justice League: The New Frontier nor Teen Titans: The Judas Contract have even gotten release dates yet. However, Warner Bros. is already planning to bring two other jewels in the DC crown, Wonder Woman and Batman, to animated DVD.
According to the documents ICv2 found, Warner will aim the as-yet-untitled Wonder Woman DVD at "males 18 and up, women 18 and up and girls from 9-17." How they plan to do this remains a mystery, but the studio wants to get a PG-13 rating for the DVD. It's believed that Warner will go for an image and storyline for the iconic Amazon princess which greatly resembles George Perez's 1987 "origins" tale.
During those 62 issues, Perez redefined Wonder Woman as an Amazon princess and emissary from Themyscira (Paradise Island), making the character tougher but making her naive as well. She was named and clothed in honour of Diana Trevor, a U.S. Army pilot who crash-landed on Themyscira and died while fighting a demon alongside the Amazons. Perez also flavoured the comic with characters from Greek mythology, giving the back story greater depth, and eliminated the traditional romance between Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor.
On the other hand, Warner is looking for a more anime-style vision for the Dark Knight, even going so far as to give it the working title Batman Anime. In the internal documents, Warner envisions a compilation of six Batman stories rendered "in the style of Japanese anime." They're also aiming for a PG-13 rating for this DVD. Their model for the Batman Anime is the 2003 direct-to-DVD anime Animatrix, which the Wachowskis used to develop the The Matrix sequels.
Like with Animatrix, Warner wants to use the new DVD to bridge the story gap between Christopher Nolan's 2005 live-action flick Batman Begins and his upcoming sequel The Dark Knight.
This is why the DVD is intended to come out two weeks before the live-action The Dark Knight hits theatres.
David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets), and Josh Olsen (A History of Violence) have been tapped to write some of the storylines.
Fun Fact: William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman for Max Gaines at All-American Publications. He based the character on his wife Elizabeth, who was reportedly a very unconventional, liberated woman. Marston, who also helped develop the polygraph lie-detector test, believed that women were more honest, and more reliable, than men.
In a 1943 issue of The American Scholar, Marston wrote, "Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."
