Executive Producer Bruce Timm sets the record straight on DC Universe Animated Original Movies and Batman: Under the Red Hood

Warner Bros. animated have sent us the next crew interview with producer Bruce Timm who gives us the low down on 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...

Robin makes a grand entrance in “Batman: Under the Red Hood,” the next DC Universe animated original movie.

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.

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.

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.