Warner Bros. was once famed for their animation department. While originally devoted to theatrical shorts, the animators began devoting more time to television and film productions. These included superhero movies set in the DC Universe. Today, many of these films are available for streaming on HBO Max.
What are the best animated superhero movies on HBO Max?
Unfortunately, the full library of animated superhero movies made by Warner Bros. Animation is not freely available on HBO Max. In recent years, the streaming service has become infamous for cutting costs by not hosting the full Warner Archive. Despite this, there are still some great animated DC Comics movies available.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
There is considerable debate among superhero fans as to which of the many Batman movies is the best. Whenever these discussions happen, there is one dark horse candidate that some argue against purely because it is animated. That movie is Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
Ten years after beginning his war on crime, Batman encounters a new vigilante who doesn’t share his code against killing. This Phantasm begins targeting the gangsters of Gotham City, leading the Dark Knight to seek a common link. The trail leads to businessman Carl Beaumont, who is recently returned to Gotham City after a decade abroad. It also leads Bruce Wayne to reconnect with Beaumont’s daughter, Andrea, who almost got him to give up the superhero life before breaking their engagement without explanation.
Produced by the same creative team behind Batman: The Animated Series, Mask of the Phantasm plays out like an extended episode of the show. The same moody orchestral music is on-hand, along with the series’ trademark Art Deco backgrounds painted on black paper. It is the script and the voice acting, however, that truly make the movie a classic.
Kevin Conroy delivered many classic performances as the Dark Knight, but Mask of the Phantasm was his first truly great one. The scene in which Bruce Wayne pleads at his parents’ grave during a thunderstorm was truly groundbreaking for the time. Both in terms of portrayals of Batman and superhero animation aimed at adults.
Dana Delaney also earned accolades for her performance as Andrea Beaumont. Many believe her work here led to her being cast as Lois Lane in Superman: The Animated Series. And unsurprisingly, Mark Hamill delivers a perfect performance as The Joker.
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (2011)
For ages untold, the Green Lantern Corps has protected the universe. Now, the sun of their home base on the planet Oa is under attack by forces from the Anti-Matter universe. As the Corps prepare for the greatest battle in their history, a new recruit named Arisia questions her worthiness to be a Green Lantern. However, her spirits are boosted by veteran Lanterns Hal Jordan and Sinestro, who tell her tales of the challenges faced by other members of the Corps.
There have been quite a few animated movies based upon the Green Lantern comics. However, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is easily the best. Part of this is due to the anthology format, which allows it to tell several stories within the frame of the larger conflict.
The best of these is adapted from a comic by Watchmen creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It concerns an evil warrior known as Bolphunga the Unrelenting, who hunts the mightiest warriors in the universe. He seeks out a legendary Green Lantern called Mogo, and ultimately learns just why Mogo is respected and feared in equal measure.
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights also boasts one of the most impressive voice casts of any animated superhero movie. Elisabeth Moss of The Handmaid’s Tale plays Arisia, while Jason Isaacs lends his voice to Sinestro. Henry Rollins plays the Green Lantern drill sergeant Killowog, while Bolphunga the Unrelenting is voiced by wrestling legend and They Live star Roddy Piper. It is Nathan Fillion’s performance as Hal Jordan, however, which anchors the film. It also led to Fillion recreating the role of Hal Jordan for the DC Animated Movie Universe, from 2013 to 2020.
Justice League: Doom (2012)
The immortal Vandal Savage has schemed to take over the world for millennia. His latest plan involves two elements. First, a Legion of Doom made up of the greatest enemies of the Justice League. Secondly, an attack from within using plans designed by Batman to stop his superhero allies should they ever get out of control.
The villains divide and conquer, putting their archenemies in dire straits. The only thing that might save them is the efforts of Cyborg, the new recruit who was overlooked in Savage’s plans. But even if the superheroes save the day, will the Justice League recover from the revelation that it was Batman’s plans that almost killed them?
Justice League: Doom is not set in the DC Animated Universe. This is made clear by the presence of Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern Hal Jordan and the absence of Hawkgirl. It also features a dramatically different animation style.
However, the film was scripted by Justice League Unlimited producer Dwayne McDuffie and adapted from the classic Justice League storyline ‘Tower of Babel.’ The movie also featured many voice actors from the DC Animated Universe, including Kevin Conroy as Batman and Tim Daly as Superman. This gives Justice League: Doom a familiar feeling, despite the darker tone and art direction. It also features some intense action scenes, such as The Flash reenacting the movie Speed on-foot, after being tagged with a velocity-sensitive bomb.
The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
The Lego Movie was a surprise smash when it was released in 2014. However, the film’s version of Batman, voiced by Will Arnett, was far and way the film’s breakout character. Three years later, he reprised the role in The Lego Batman Movie.
The film finds Batman in a panic, as new Police Commissioner Barbara Gordon plans to restructure the GCPD so they don’t need Batman. This leads him to go over the edge to prove his worth and accidentally enable Joker’s jail-break from the Phantom Zone. However, with the help of his new adopted son, Robin, a new Batgirl, and his butler Alfred, Batman may learn the value of family and that he doesn’t need to do everything on his own.
The Lego Batman Movie contains more of the same jokes about Lego figures from The Lego Movie. However, it also features a number of Easter eggs involving the DCU and DC Comics. Throw in a great ensemble including Michael Cera as Robin and Zach Galifianakis as Joker, and you have a movie that is as touching as it is funny.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)
Knowing the threat Darkseid poses to Earth, the Justice League and Teen Titans join forces to stop him once and for all. They fail. Most of the superheroes are killed in the battle or enslaved by the armies of Apokolips.
Two years later, a depowered Superman tries to rebuild what was lost and save the Earth. With the aid of Lois Lane, Raven, Robin, and John Constantine, he will build a new superhero team. They will even draw upon the Suicide Squad in Earth’s darkest hour. However, it may be too late to save their universe, much less the Earth.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War was a coda for the first chapter of the DC Animated Movie Universe. It was also proof that WB Animation could produce adult superhero anime and do it well. Again, the movie featured a stunning script and a talented voice ensemble. The stand-out, however was Matt Ryan, recreating the role of John Constantine after playing him in live-action in the Arrowverse.
How we picked the best animated superhero movies on HBO Max in 2026
Beyond the question of whether it was available on HBO Max or not, three criteria informed this list. First, is the movie well-regarded and historically important? Second, is it adapted from a notable comic book story? Finally, does it feature great voice acting?
Batman is getting another series of movies, and they’ll be based on his famous comic book storyline, Knightfall.
At New York Comic Con on Friday, Warner Bros. announced a four-part, “multi-chapter animated event,” with the first film releasing sometime in 2026. In the comics, Knightfall was created by Jo Duffy, Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, Dennis O’Neil, Peter David, Alan Grant, Jim Aparo, Jim Balent, Graham Nolan, and Norm Breyfogle and ran from 1993 to 1994. According to the press release, it sees Batman “pushed to his mental and physical breaking point” after the steroid-using mercenary Bane comes to Gotham and busts his rogues out of Arkham Asylum.
Bane’s since become one of Batman’s most well-known enemies and is notorious for breaking his spine. While recovering, Bruce recruits grad student Jean-Paul Valley to don the cowl in his stead, but things… don’t go well, leading Bruce to use supernatural means to heal himself and bring down his former friend, who started going by Azrael.
Knightfall is considered one of the most important Batman arcs: along with introducing its two new supporting characters, it’s considered instrumental to the birth of the “Bat Family” as we know it today, which includes Nightwing, the Robins and Batgirls, and Azrael, funnily enough.
Batman: Knightfall is the latest DC Comics arc to be adapted into multi-part animated movies, preceded by Crisis on Infinite Earths and Watchmen. We’ll have more on this upcoming set of films as news comes out.
Warner Bros. has just released Watchmen: Chapter 1, the first half of a new animated adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ groundbreaking superhero murder mystery. In honor of its VOD premiere, io9 sat down with director Brandon Vietti, as well as actors Katee Sackhoff and Titus Welliver, who voice brand-new takes on Silk Spectre/Laurie Juspeczyk and Rorschach/Walter Kovacs.
As this was a rare opportunity, we couldn’t resist asking a few additional questions about their previous work, including The Mandalorian, The X-Files, and Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery. First up is director Vietti, who was keen to discuss adapting the first half of the 12-issue limited series into a deft, 80-minute feature.
Gordon Jackson, io9: You’ve been with Warner Brothers Animation for a long time, right?
Brandon Vietti: Twenty years.
io9: Twenty years, and you’ve worked on many different incarnations of Batman—The Brave and the Bold, Under the Red Hood, Batman vs Dracula, the Scooby-Doo/Wrestlemania crossover…
Vietti: I did.
io9: …and now you’re on Watchmen. How do you feel about that?
Vietti: It was intimidating. But also tremendous joy, because I respect the material so much. I was a fan of the book. The complexity of the storytelling, the characters, the world-building—it’s unmatched. And while it was a daunting task to kind of step into all of that world-building, amazing craftsmanship, and the prestige that comes along with it, it was also fun for me. I love that kind of puzzle-solving involved in trying to adapt. It works so well on the printed page, so to bring it into the filmmaking medium—but specifically to the animated medium—to really capture all of the strengths of animation, the unique voice of animation in adapting this material. It was just a lot of fun for me and my entire group.
io9: Going into this, was there something you knew you wanted to do differently than the Zack Snyder movie? Had you at any point said to yourself, “This hasn’t been done before. I really want to adapt this the way I see it”?
Vietti: I try not to waste too much on Zack’s amazing movie or the amazing motion comic that came before us. Those are great adaptations, and with any adaptation, any artist that comes in to adapt great material is going to bring a different voice to it. I didn’t want to disrespect any of the artists that came before me by straight-up copying, but my goal, our task that we set for ourselves, was to focus on the original comic and do the best we could in adapting this to animation. To answer your question, though, I think for me, the most fun is the sequence with Dr. Manhattan on Mars.
Vietti: Absolutely. I think I had a lot of ideas for how to sort of mix some of that material, using editing, using transitions, using sound design, to hopefully allow the audience to experience what Dr. Manhattan experiences in perceiving multiple points of time simultaneously. That’s something that I think a comic book would have difficultly portraying. A film can do it very well. I think animation can do it best. So to me, that was the biggest creative push in trying to find a way to sell to the audience, “What it’s like to be Dr. Manhattan?” How do you get in his head and perceive multiple points of time? And that was an example of embracing the strengths of animation in our storyline.
io9: Did you feel intimidated by Dr. Manhattan? The character’s been meme’d so much, in recent years. He’s been parodied a lot. You didn’t feel like there was anything that you had to navigate around…
Vietti: I wanted to really make this come through. I mean, hopefully what we did does come through.
io9: It does. But the image of him sitting on the rock on Mars—there’s a popular meme surrounding that. Were you warned against putting that image in there?
Vietti: I gotta say, it never crossed my mind that the fact that it’s been meme’d a lot. Again, my entire focus was capturing the spirit of the original book.
io9: The script by J. Michael Straczynski is so tight, yet he didn’t add or remove a single word. Did you feel the text itself was absolutely sacrosanct?
Vietti: Yeah, but there’s a lot of work that he did. He really was the key to unlocking how to translate … I keep saying … 12 books into a movie format. It’s difficult. The pacing that you do for an individual issue of 12 issues is different than what you would do for a movie. So with all of his vast experience in TV and film, he was able to go in there and find a better way for us, for the filmmaking media. Sort of reorganize some scenes. Make very difficult cuts. We didn’t want to cut anything. We have so much screen time. We had to make some hard choices for editing, organization material, cutting material. And he was really the key in helping unlock the best way to format the movie for two chapters.
io9: The integration of the Black Freighter narrative was very clever.
Vietti: Yeah, I remember one of our first meetings he was super energized about Black Freighter. The Freighter, as Alan Moore wrote it, always had these interesting poetic resonances with what was going on outside of the comic and the characters. And Straczynski really had a bunch of other ideas too within our new format because of the challenges of the adaptation. And I sort of integrate that stuff in a slightly different way, but it still feels like it was done in the book. And of course that really gave me a great filmmaking opportunity to- again, I think works best in animation—cutting back and forth between the events, the visual of a comic book panel, the visual of an animated frame. Personally, I felt was something that would work better, be more successful, and doing the same trick with live action as a contrast of visual.
After we spoke to Vietti, Katee Sackhoff was generous enough to discuss her performance as the Silk Spectre—among other things.
io9: So, Watchmen: How excited were you to join this?
Katee Sackhoff: Oh my gosh. You know, every time I sort of get asked to do a voiceover animation, I look at the content. I look at if it’s something that I’m intrigued to see. And when I saw Watchmen come across my desk, I was like, oh, yeah, no, I have to do this. I have to do this. This is super cool.
io9: When it comes to voice acting, you’ve already been Poison Ivy, She-Hulk, Black Cat, and Robot Chicken‘s Bitch Pudding. Your performance in this felt legitimately anguished.
Sackhoff: Thank you. I think Laurie—I identified with a lot of the things that she feels. I felt her pain and I felt what it’s like to love somebody with all of your heart and not feel enough. I know what those things feel like. And I wanted the audience to hear it in her. Because I find her to be so strong, but incredibly vulnerable. And, you know, when you see when she’s not getting what she needs, that her heart breaks. So, yeah.
io9: Did you record all of your lines by yourself, or did you get to be in the same room as Titus Welliver and everybody?
Sackhoff: I didn’t, sadly. You know, Titus and I have had the pleasure of working together once in person on Mandalorian. And then we’ve done quite a bit of voiceover jobs together at this point but we’ve never recorded together. So I think that’s next for us. We’re going to have to at some point get in a room. But wouldn’t that have been awesome? Every time I do a voiceover job, I always think to myself, “God, wouldn’t this have been awesome to be able to coordinate all these people and get in a room together?” But it never seems to happen.
io9: So, speaking of Mandalorian, as Bo-Katan, you have that famous image of yourself sitting on the throne. How difficult was that to pose and how much thought went into it? Was there a lot of maneuvering? Were they like, “Katee, could you shift here?” Or did you just nail it in one go?
Sackhoff: Live-action is a lot more challenging than voiceover. And there are times where I wish that Bo was still in voiceover. Holding that position was incredibly difficult and painful and not natural. But I think it looked absolutely cool on camera. So it was the right choice. But it was definitely not natural.
io9: And speaking of Bitch Pudding—I’ve always wanted to ask you about this. What was the origin of that? How were you asked to play her? Was that a voice you always had on deck?
Sackhoff: You know what’s funny is that voiceover work doesn’t come naturally to me. And one of the things with Seth Green and Matt [Senreich] that is so awesome is that they bring you in and they pull these voices out of me because they’re there. We just have to find them. Okay, and so Bitch Pudding was—I went in to play [Battlestar Galactica‘s] Starbuck. And you know, they’re notoriously cheap over there. And I was done in about five minutes. And then they were like, “Well, maybe you should play these other characters.” Because we bought you for 30 minutes and one of the characters was Bitch Pudding. And I don’t know where that character came from.
io9: Your guttural soul.
Sackhoff: Somewhere deep within that anguish part. It’s a lot easier to play Laurie, I have to tell you.
io9: So Silk Spectre was something you didn’t have to really pull at?
Sackhoff: She was just there. And like I said, I understood her anguish. I understand who she is as a person. And this story is great. I love it. I love that they’re staying true to the book. And I’m excited to see what fans think.
io9: The integration of all the details was amazing. Did you get a script first, or just read your lines as written on the day you recorded?
Sackhoff: No, so I did get the script. As soon as the idea came across of doing this, in playing Silk Spectre, the script does come to you. And I read the script and they sort of practiced it in the idea of like, you know, this is true in the book. And that was enough for me to sign on. And I really, really loved it. And then working with Brandon was so great. And, you know, he really helped me channel into the pain in Laurie and making sure that that would come across.
io9: Did you have anything in mind about your performance that you wanted to do differently from the live-action movie and Malin Ackerman’s portrayal?
Sackhoff: Oh gosh. You know, what’s funny is I’ve had the pleasure multiple times of taking characters that were not originated by myself and making them my own. And I think that this is, you know, what makes Laurie special is no different than that. I love what was established by the talent to [play her] before me. And I think that that comparison, though, would, for myself … is something that I just can’t do. So as soon as I signed on to do this, I did not go and look at any more Watchmen because I knew at that point that I would be trying to emulate instead of create.
Finally, we spoke to Titus Welliver about his kinder, gentler performance as Rorschach.
io9: How excited were you to join this and voice Rorschach?
Titus Welliver: Oh, very privileged and extremely excited. I got the book when it first came out and have been a huge fan of it for years. And like everyone else who was a fan of the book, teasing over the years that there would someday be a movie … and finally, Zack Snyder makes the film and [it’s] great. And so to be a part of this, which is basically a, you know, the animated feature and the amazing job with the animation are basically the panels come to life. So it’s an honor.
io9: How much tuning and calibration did you have to do with the gravel in your voice before deciding “I’m going to go this far, no further”?
Welliver: It took a minute and we recorded a portion of it on the first day and there was something that was nagging me and we kind of came back together and I just said there’s something that’s not right. So obviously I couldn’t do I wasn’t going to do a straight lift of Jackie [Earle Haley]’s performance, but his performance was great. And there was something there and I wanted to pay homage to his work. It was incredible. We found it on the second day and now all the vocal training I had in conservatory. None of that came in the play because it was all, “Raaah.”
io9: Yeah, it sounded like your voice must have been shot after a couple hours.
Welliver: Right.
io9: So, your version of Rorschach felt a little more nuanced—almost as if he were on the spectrum. He wasn’t exactly cultivating this persona to push people away, he was being his authentic self and didn’t understand people’s reactions to it. Was that something you were aiming for?
Welliver: Yeah. And actually, the director and I, we kind of talked about that because I’d said, regardless of characters [being] good, bad or indifferent on a level, in his journey, his moral compass is moving in the right direction. But he’s in this process, and the fact that he’s dealing with all the stuff that he’s dealing with … It’s not that you have to make a character likable, but I felt like I wanted to leave something there that would resonate with people that were watching it [and] that there was something there with a level of humanity in that character. And that’s difficult … that part of it was really, really interesting to do. So I’m glad that that came through.
io9: His friendship with Dan really shines through. When he breaks into his house and apologizes, “Sorry, I ate your beans,” that felt like a legitimate concern on his part and not just a power move.
Welliver: Yeah. You’re you’re you’re spot on with that. It’s hard when you’re in something, you’re trying. That’s my intent. You know, process of recording these things, there’s some stuff that you have to kind of withdraw. But we were really given the amount of time to really find it and do it properly. So it wasn’t just like, “Yeah, it’s not good. Let’s go.” We really, really took our time. And I think having only seen clips and stuff in the trailer and not seen it, I’m really excited to see it. So I’m going to finally get to do that.
io9: And you recorded all of your lines in isolation, right? No one else was in the booth with you?
Welliver: Yeah. No, I didn’t get to meet—I mean, I knew Katee from Mandalorian. And also we both worked on a Batman thing [Batman: The Long Halloween] … So yeah, there wasn’t any of that interaction, unfortunately, but in a way it was kind of cool because everybody had the freedom to kind of stay on what you needed to do on task.
io9: We’re huge fans of Deadwood. You didn’t come back for the movie, though. You were filming Bosch, right?
Welliver: Yeah, yeah. That kind of precluded me. I would have loved to come back. But yeah, Bosch, I was shooting that. But I thought they did a great job with it. So it’s really cool to see those characters again.
io9: Were there plans for Silas that you were privy to?
Welliver: There had been talk about it ages ago, but you know, that’s been an ongoing conversation for years. “Oh, they’re going to do it. Oh, they’re not going to do it.” … There [weren’t] any further conversations beyond that. But I was disappointed only because I loved playing that character. It was such a tight family of actors under the brilliant umbrella of David Milch. So I was bummed, but I thought [the movie] was great.
io9:You were also in a fan-favorite episode of The X-Files, “Darkness Falls.”
Welliver: Oh, it was a great experience, but it was hard. It poured rain the entire time. Yeah, thank you. But it was wonderful and it forged a relationship with David Duchovny and Jason Beghe and Gillian Anderson. It was a wonderful experience. I was a fan of the show. I desperately wanted to do it. I remember my manager at the time said, “Oh, that show’s going to be off the air.” And I said, “I think it’s a really good show. I want to do it.” So the opportunity came along and I did it. And I fired that manager because he was very wrong.
Watchmen: Chapter 1 stars the voices of Titus Welliver, Katee Sackhoff, Corey Burton, Adrienne Barbeau, Kelly Hu, Michael Cerveris, Jeffrey Combs, Phil Lamarr, Matthew Rhys, Yuri Lowenthal, Geoff Pierson, Dwight Shultz, Kari Wahlgren, John Marshall Jones, Max Koch, Jason Spisak, and Rick D. Wasserman.
It’s available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Fandango at Home; the 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray versions arrive August 27.
Bad Fairies is flying toward a 2027 release from Warner Bros.
The studio announced Tuesday that the animated feature hailing from Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and Locksmith Animation is set to hit theaters July 23, 2027. The movie from director Megan Nicole Dong, known for creating and directing the Netflix animated musical series Centaurworld, is currently in production in London.
Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and Locksmith Animation also announced that Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss — who co-created the Tony-winning musical Six and the new musical Why Am I So Single, premiering on London’s West End next month — will write the songs for Bad Fairies. Additionally, Grammy-nominated musician Isabella Summers (Florence and the Machine) will compose the score and produce the songs.
Bad Fairies is billed as a subversive musical comedy set in present-day London and focusing on a rule-breaking group of badass fairies. Dong directs the feature from a script by Deborah Frances-White, host of podcast The Guilty Feminist. DNEG Animation serves as digital partners for Bad Fairies. A voice cast has not been announced.
“Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and Locksmith Animation are excited to welcome this extraordinary dream team of musical talents, Toby Marlow, Lucy Moss and Isabella Summers into our Bad Fairies family,” said Warner Bros. Pictures Animation president Bill Damaschke and Locksmith Animation CCO Mary Coleman said in a joint statement. “Together they will bring vibrant and unforgettable dimension to the story, and we cannot wait to share it with audiences around the world in 2027.”
Carolyn Soper produces the film, while Rikke Asbjoern and Chris Garbutt serve as heads of story. Sim Evan-Jones is editor on the project, with Uwe Heidschötter serving as cinematographer and Uwe Heidschötter handling character design.
Porky Pig and Daffy Duck probably won’t be heading for a career in real estate, as seen in a new preview clip from the forthcoming theatrical release The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.
Director Pete Browngardt’s sci-fi comedy from Warner Bros. Animation is set to hit theaters domestically later this year but does not yet have an announced release date. The project focuses on Porky and Daffy (both voiced by Eric Bauza) learning that aliens are plotting to overtake the planet, which leads the pair to put their differences aside and help save the world.
The sequence shows the Looney Tunes mainstays cutting countless corners while attempting to prepare their home ahead of an inspection. “Well, Porky, we’re all finished,” Daffy says triumphantly. “Here’s to passing this inspection and living another year just the way we like it.”
This leads a conflicted Porky to hesitantly respond, “Yeah, just the way we like it.”
Toward the end of the clip, Daffy attempts to assuage Porky as the inspector arrives. “Don’t worry, chum,” Daffy says. “I’ll handle thus middle-aged busybody.”
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is set to premiere Tuesday at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Bonnie Arnold and David Kirschner serve as producers on the film that marks the first fully animated Looney Tunes feature to debut with a theatrical run.
The film’s release follows Warner Bros.’ decision not to release Coyote vs. Acme, a hybrid of live-action and CG animation centering on Looney Tunes favorite Wile E. Coyote and starring John Cena and Will Forte. The Hollywood Reporter reported late last year that Warner Bros. planned to shelve the movie for a tax write-off.
Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe shared their plans Monday for the annual animation fest held June 9-15 in Annecy, France.
Among the planned events include Andy Serkis hosting a filmmaker conversation and extended look at The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, the anime feature that hails from New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Animation. Director Kenji Kamiyama and producers Philippa Boyens, Joseph Chou and Jason DeMarco will take part in the discussion and present the first footage from the movie that Warner Bros. is set to release theatrically on Dec. 13.
The animation process is currently underway for The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which centers on the fortress of Helm’s Deep and its founder, Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan. (Images from the project can be seen above and below.) Last week, Warner Bros. announced that a live-action Lord of the Rings film from director Serkis is in early development and eyeing a 2026 release.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
Other programming highlights at Annecy from the studio include a making-of session for Creature Commandos, which marks the first DC Studios project from bosses Gunn and Peter Safran. Gunn serves as executive producer and writer for the Max animated series that hails from DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation and does not yet have a premiere date.
At the Annecy presentation, Creature Commandos supervising producer Rick Morales and supervising director Balak Yves will share an in-depth look at the artistic process behind the series that focuses on Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) forming a military group comprised of monstrous villains.
Also set for Annecy is a panel sharing an inside look at the return of the Cartoon Network series The Amazing World of Gumball, in addition to a world-premiere screening of the forthcoming animated feature The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.
[This interview contains major spoilers for Merry Little Batman.]
DC Studios’ Merry Little Batman sees Bruce Wayne in an unusual turn: donning his dad hat during the holidays.
The Warner Bros. Animation film follows the relationship of Bruce and his son, Damian, an 8-year-old desperate to be just like his crime-fighting father. The only problem — beyond him being a literal child — is that crime no longer exists in Gotham. Batman decided to clean up the streets for good to give Damian a shot at the safe, crime-free childhood Bruce didn’t have.
But when his overprotective father is called to save the day in Nova Scotia on Christmas Eve and becomes stranded in a trap laid by Mr. Freeze, Damian is left home alone with no one to help him as two criminals break in. The hapless burglars manage to make off with his newly gifted utility belt, leading Damian on a chase through Gotham’s wintry streets as he encounters the Rogues Gallery: Penguin, Bane, Poison Ivy, and none other than The Joker.
The film, which stars Luke Wilson as Bruce Wayne, Yonas Kibreab as Damian, and James Cromwell as Alfred, alongside David Hornsby (The Joker), Therese McLaughlin (Poison Ivy), Brian George (The Penguin), Chris Sullivan (Bane) and Dolph Adomian (Mr. Freeze), was initially set to debut on Max. But like a litany of other projects slated for the streamer, it was axed as part of a series of tax write-offs that downsized the company’s pandemic-fueled content library. Luckily, Merry Little Batman found a studio interested in bringing the Dark Knight’s fans a little Christmas cheer.
An elf, Santa Claus and Damian at the mall in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
“When Warner Bros. was bought by Discovery, there were, obviously, a lot of changes and some course correction. The good news was, we had an animatic, and it was in very good shape. We were all very happy with it, and [WBD], from what I understand, did like the project, so they allowed us to continue producing it and making it with the idea that we find a new home for it,” recalls the film’s director Mike Roth. “We pitched it around, and Amazon got very excited and bought it, thankfully.”
The Warner Bros. animated film is also attached to a spin-off series, similarly canceled at Max and revived by Amazon, that will expand the world teased in Batman’s first real Christmas film, which is visually inspired by the art of Ron Searle. It’s a universe that doesn’t forget to pay homage to its previous iterations either, with Ka-Pow jokes and more easter eggs for just about “every iteration and generation” of Batman fans, says the director.
“That’s what the nipple suit is in the Batcave. That is 100 percent a nod to George Clooney and that whole suit,” Roth says, speaking to one of the movie’s easter eggs. “Damian’s like, well, that leaves nothing to the imagination, and I feel like everybody watching that movie for the first time had a similar thought.”
Merry Little Batman is a film chock-full of inspirations and homages — from Home Alone to Shel Silverstein — and even features fun musical touches like “All I Really Want For Christmas,” from Lil Jon and featuring the Kool-Aid Man (yes, the actual drink mascot). Roth notes that music choice, in particular — lyrics that “speak exactly to Damian’s POV” alongside “a bassy, booming beat” that drives audiences through a sequence where Damian is “beginning to get all he really wants for Christmas”— had him feeling like the song “was written for this moment.”
“We knew we wanted a needle-drop Christmas song here,” Roth tells The Hollywood Reporter about the music supervision choice. “We also wanted a song that quite frankly ‘kicked-butt,’ to really put an exclamation point on the excitement Damian is experiencing. And for the audience we wanted it to have an MTV music video vibe.”
Roth spoke to THR about all of this and more, including scraped movie ideas, how the TV show was born, and whether Batman Returns is a Christmas movie following the release of Merry Little Batman.
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The film holds a sort of unique place in the Batman canon, which has been around as long as a whole person’s — or multiple people’s — lifetime. Can you talk about your approach to taking him into dad and Christmas territory?
There’s 90 years of history with Batman, so he’s had lots of different iterations, but like you said, it’s a lifetime, basically, since we’ve ever seen this type of Batman. Usually, he’s a brooding, stoic presence. For us, we got an opportunity to explore the dad side of Bruce. He’s still Bruce because he still has that laser focus, but he’s vanquished all the crime in Gotham, so … now he’s taken all of his laser focus, and he’s put into being a dad.
When exploring that space, we took some of our own daddisms — who we are as dads — and we put that into him, while still being true to his character. He’s still stoic, but he has this loving, touching side, and because he’s so laser-focused on raising his son, he no longer needs a debonair style. He’s grown a beard. He’s got a flannel on. He’s got his dad sneakers. He’s in full dad mode, or as we affectionately call him, a “bat-copter dad” — a helicopter dad. (Laughs.)
When it was originally imagined, the idea was, let’s have a Christmas story with Batman. It had some homages to Home Alone and still has some of that DNA in there, though, originally, it was even more Home Alone-ish. But what better way to tell a Christmas story than through the eyes of a child? Very early on, there was an idea — it didn’t last long — about, what if Batman was a kid? But I think people love Batman, and they want to see the Batman they want to see.
Damian in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
It seemed natural then to go this [movie’s] route because Batman does have a child, Damian. He’s an interesting character, and I feel like people love him, or they hate him. (Laughs.) But because he’s 13, he’s a little bit petulant and at that point where he talks back, and that wasn’t quite the angle that we needed. So we dialed the clock back on him and we made him eight.
To be honest, when we were first exploring this branch of Batman, we didn’t jump 100 percent into dad-mode. The story kind of took it there, and I think it’s for a whole bunch of reasons. We’ve never seen this type of Batman before, but the story opened up a door for us to see a side that we normally wouldn’t see.
You mentioned not going with Bruce as a kid, but you’re still exploring Batman tropes with Damian. They’re just almost inverted, like the bat-signal, which inspires fear instead of hope because crime has been wiped out. Why and how did you and the writers, Morgan Evans and Jase Ricci, want to play with those specific tropes even though you weren’t telling a Bruce story?
Damian gets his belt for Christmas and all that is, is the macguffin. What Damian wants more than anything is to be Batman like his dad, but there are two things stopping him. One, there’s no crime left in Gotham, and two, Bruce is overprotective. So the door opens up for Damian when Bruce gets tricked into going to Nova Scotia, and then, lo and behold, these two criminals break in and crime is back. So what we’re seeing is Damian beginning and completing this journey of becoming Batman.
All those tropes, as much as we possibly could, we strategically placed them so that we could see this growth. He first gets in the Batmobile, he can’t really use it. (Laughs.) Ok, the Batpod is a piece of machinery he can handle. He’s starting to become his dad now. He’s having fun, and he’s still very childlike — still focused on getting the belt, but as it’s happening, he’s growing into this superhero. Now he’s got big Rogues Gallery villains. These aren’t B-villains. This is the real deal. We’ve got real stakes, he could die. He’s up against some of the worst, and it just keeps escalating.
Bane, Poison Ivy, Damian Wayne, the Joker, and Penguin in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
That zoo scene says so much about those tropes because [Damian] sees Bruce’s angle for the first time. He’s starting to understand why his dad is who he is, which is really the growth of a child moving towards maturity. Then in the very, very end, when he goes to fight the Joker and everybody, he finally learns his lesson. He says, “I’m going to have to sacrifice this thing I love. That’s what dad has been telling me all along, and now I get it. I’m going to sacrifice this belt, and I’m going to do everything I can to defeat these villains and save Christmas.”
And at the very end, of course, which is one of my favorite parts, Bruce Wayne doesn’t even see it at first. (Laughs.)
Batman has been both serious and comedic onscreen, with some of the lighter, more self-aware moments as a crime-fighting superhero in the ’60s series and ’90s live-action films. Your movie does this, too. How did you think about being funny without making fun of being a vigilante dressed as a bat or undercutting the dangerous moments for Damian?
I think a lot of that stuff happened organically while putting the story together because we’re also fans of Batman. I don’t want to date myself too much, but I’m almost 50, so I grew up with the ’66 Batman when it was very fun and campy. But even in that ’66 Batman, he’s still a stoic, stern gentleman type. You don’t really see behind the mask, even when he’s not wearing a mask. That was a fun space to explore for us. You can see jokes littered throughout the whole project that are nods to all the different Batmans. Some of that was for ourselves, some of that we placed for the fans.
I always said, with the humor in our project … we could never go full Mel Brooks. I’m not knocking Mel Brooks. He’s my favorite. But for us, we wanted to create this world that had real pathos for Damian, so we needed a universe where an anvil hits you over the head and it will kill you. The comedy had to come from a place where it couldn’t get so zany that it was Tex Avery because then you would never believe that this little kid is actually in danger. It’s a restraint that we put on ourselves on purpose. It gave us the emotion that we needed.
The bat-signal and Damian in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
Another thing with this property that was a bit of a balance is wanting that co-viewership. We didn’t want to make something that’s just for kids or just for adults. We wanted grandparents to enjoy it, too. What’s their Batman? That’s part of why in the sound design, there are a lot of analog-type sounds. The phone for example has more tactile buttons. The rewind button, it’s clearly a VHS tape. The fight sequences with Mr. Freeze, that’s very much for the middle-aged generation of Batman fans, and then a bunch of stuff in there for the kids as well.
You both follow and buck the unspoken rules of kids storytelling. Damian goes on some dangerous adventures without an adult, but then you give him an AI “Bat-Dad” when he thinks Bruce might have died. It’s an interesting workaround to letting a young child loose in Gotham and a twist on Bruce’s story. Damian now lives in a world where, unlike Bruce, he can grow up with his dad even if he’s gone. But what did you want to achieve including an AI Bat-Dad?
He’s a child going on this journey becoming an adult. His real wish fulfillment is to be his dad at some point, so having Bat-Dad come along with him, it gave us a couple of devices. One, it can be there as a guiding light, but I think the more subtle part of it is, it is his dad, but it’s not his dad. It’s almost like a carrot. He’s almost got his dad and then it dies and then he does get his real dad in the end.
For us, it’s always been a story about the relationship of a father and a son, so having Bat-Dad on that journey with Damian changes that chemistry a little bit. It’s teasing a father presence in there, plus Bat-Dad’s super funny. And when Bat-Dad dies, it gets me every time. That zoo scene where he really makes this connection with his dad and you see that this dad respects him — but it’s not his dad. It’s a computerized version of his dad. It’s almost there, but it’s not.
As a filmmaker, what I wanted was to keep that tension alive. Damian wants his dad, but he can’t have his dad. When his dad shows up at the end of the movie, and he sweeps through the candy factory, I hope that the audience gets that experience of, “Oh, thank goodness. They are finally together.” (Laughs.) And Bat-Dad helps that journey.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
The Ron Searle-inspired art was lovely, and the right kind of menacing when it needed to be with the Bat villains. They’ve also got this Shel Silverstein, caricature-like look to them — with that added visual movement. It feels different than where a lot of the experimentation in animation style is these days post-Spiderverse. How did you approach delivering a classic art look in our modern, CG-dominated animation world?
That’s very observant. Shel Silverstein also was an influence for us. Even at times Gary Larson and Far Side. There’s like a little bit of Calvin and Hobbes in there as well. Nothing comes from no place, you know what I mean? And it’s not like we just want to do something different. The driving force behind this project has always been, it’s a Christmas movie, so how do we tell that? What’s the visual storytelling that also paints this Christmas picture? Some of that is color. Some of that’s putting in Christmas trees and lights and decorations.
But we also wanted something that felt like a picture book. Almost like something you read Christmas Eve to your kids that has an illustrative feel to it and maybe rings a little bit of Charles Dickens. Ron Searle is such an interesting choice to me because the drawings themselves are very sketchy. There’s a visceral-ness to it, and a crudeness, which to me represents Gotham. At the same time, they’re also very funny. That kind of bookends it. It balances the seesaw of the two things that we need this property to be.
With Batman, there is an expectation, especially now, to have a grittiness, too. It’s so baked into him. You want to feel that a little bit. So then it was just a matter of taking Ron Searle’s sketchiness and applying it to a production pipeline for animation. Those drawings are hard to replicate because they’re so loose. We needed some rules and parameters. I don’t know if 50 years ago, this style would necessarily work. With computer technology, we’re able to get that line and color boil that would be so insanely expensive to do 50 years ago.
Damian rides a Christmas mall train in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
It’s just one of these things, right time at the right place. The technology’s there and the idea is there. Everything came together, but it was a very complicated style. Even early on, there’s that little voice in the back of your head that’s going it’s too complicated to animate. But luckily we found a production solution to it, and we were able to put it together. My art director, who’s amazing, Guillaume Fesquet, and then assistant art director, Daby Zainab Faidhi, who is also super amazing, very much found that style.
The other thing was I’ve always wanted to do a monochromatic color style. Those types of color choices are so powerful — like a single color dominating a scene. Blue has a very visceral, emotional response. The Joker’s office is green and it feels disturbing and unnerving. Throughout the whole film, we very meticulously went through and chose colors that would sell the emotion that we wanted.
Vox recently published a piece arguing that Batman Returns is a Christmas rom-com. Since you’re technically the first certifiable Batman Christmas movie, what’s your take on that film as a Christmas movie?
That’s a tricky one. There are Christmas themes in that and it’s just fun. It’s interesting to see this dark, brooding world with the backdrop of Christmas. Because Christmas is so vulnerable and Gotham is so much the opposite, it automatically elevates the stakes. I think that’s probably the reason why it works so well. Christmas in Metropolis feels a lot different than Christmas in Gotham. So Batman Returns in that sense, it’s great. It’s a great setting.
But with our movie, what we want to do is tell a true Christmas story. Not Christmas is the backdrop but that Christmas is part of the DNA. Our whole story revolves around Damian chasing down a Christmas gift that was stolen from him. So in my opinion, our project is more of a Christmas movie. It’s the Christmas season story that hopefully, in my opinion, can become perennial, that people come back to and watch every Christmas. That’s not to take anything away from Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher — all of those. They’re all just so fun.
Damian over Gotham in Merry Little Batman.
Warner Bros. Entertainment/DC
Merry Little Batman is currently streaming on Prime Video.
