Superman Doomsday animated film 9/18
 

It's the first of a series of adaptations Bruce Timm (Batman, Justice League) is doing, but unconnected to his previous animated series. Adam Baldwin from Serenity is Superman, Anne Heche is Lois and James Marsters is Lex Luthor.

It's going to be rated PG-13. Retail is $19.99

The date and details were announced at WonderCon. New Frontier and Teen Titans: The Judas Contract are in the works.

More details here:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=103696

Could be interesting. I suppose they are going to have another Lex Luthor story in the Superman Returns sequel though....

Ugh. Give me a break, WB. The people who are interested in this are interested in the original voice actors, not big names who sound nothing like them.

Baldwin, Heche and Marsters aren't exactly big names. The new voices might be a creative decision to distinguish this Superman universe from the one in the animated series.

Please be better than those POS Marvel animated films.

It's also not pleasing how they've drastically changed the look of Luthor from the Superman/JL series. I think other than Superman and Doomsday, all the other characters will have different looks. At 70 minutes this will never deliver a good story, and will be very barebones to what was in the comics.

The battle better at least be like the comic as opposed to Doomsday beating him up for a little bit only for Superman to see his weakness and decimate him to live happily ever after.

My problem with the Marvel animated movies is they take 6 issues of a comic book and condense the story to 70 minutes and they cut A LOT out. The Ultimate Avengers should have kicked ass, but they kiddiefied it too much and it really hurt what could have been a great animated movie.

With Bruce Timm at the helm, I feel a bit more at ease, but I am hoping this Superman DVD really preserves the feel and pacing of the original comic books. If that means you get a two hour movie, then so be it. I wouldn't have any problem with a longer animated movie if it was done well enough.

Why do WB & DC try to fix something that is not broken? The animated series of Timm and Dini that started with Batman and ended with Justice League Unlimited was perfect. The actors who portrayed the characters voices were perfect. So why do they keep insisting on changing things and producing stuff unrelated to the already existing fantastic cannon? Didn't they learn from the complete dissapointing Superman: Brainiac Attacks?

http://dvdtalknycomiccon.blogspot.co...ct-to-dvd.html

When I spoke to the DC crew at the NYCC, it was pretty clear that these movies are pure adaptations of the individual stories, not attempts to be a part of a universe.

If you can have hundreds of different comic versions of these characters, there's no reason the animated versions can't exist on their own.

Who says they are trying to fix anything? It sounds like a whole new project to me. I am looking forward to it.

A new projrct unconnected with the already existing canon and with new voice actors. The old voice actors were perfectly fine.

Adam Baldwin?? All I'm going to be hearing is Jayne. ;)

Bruce Timm is doing it. so don`t worry, this guy should be running DC comics. he and Paul Dini Batman is the best adaption ever of Batman.

So will the new voice actors, I am sure. But I totally understand your point. I hate this trend in animation to get "celebrities" (though I am not sure the b-list here really counts...) to do voice work in higher profile animated movies. Let the people who do the job the best do the work. Does anybody really pay money to see an animated movie to hear somebody's voice? I mean, if you knew Drew Barrymore was doing the voice of an animated goat in a movie, would you really want to see it just to sit and listen to Drew Barrymore? It's more about story and the care put into the animation that people want. The regular voice actors would be preferred, I agree, but I am sure the new actors will do a fine job too.

Personally, I'd rather listen to the voice actors who are trained to do this type of thing than Hollywood actors hired to put their name on a project.

Exactly. People don't care at all who voices the characters, they just want that the voice to go along with the characters personality. Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman, is the perfect example of this. He isn't exactly a household name, but his voice on Batman has given the character the dark edge that it needed.

Bruce Timm?

'nuff said.

Sold!

Let's have it!

Timm is also directing Justice League: The New Frontier and guess what? Another actor voicing Superman. This time Kyle MacLachlan. And guess what? More characters out of continuity like Flash being Barry Allen, and Hal Jordan as Green Lantern.

Part of the huge appeal that the series had was that the Justice League, JLu, Superman, Batman, Batman Beyond, Static Shock and even Zeta Project series were interconnected with each other in terms of storylines, voice actors, and time frame. Now because Marvel is doing animated straight to video DVDs, then DC has to do the same. Why can't the head honchos behind all of this listen to fans for once, instead of crapping all over the previous existing work?

Sorry, I just can't picture Agent Cooper's voice as Superman.

I guess Bruce Timm has no control over who does the voices. I can't imagine he'd want those actors.

And the head honchos don't want to listen to the fans because they hope to rope in new viewers with these projects. Sucks, I know, but they want these characters to find new audiences.

That's because New Frontier IS out of continuity. It's very much an early Silver Age story.

I love the style and voice cast for the DCAU stuff, but since these are adaptions of popular story arcs from the comics, I like the idea of not trying to shoehorn them into continuity. They should have new voices.

Actually he does. Bruce Timm doesn't NEED to do anything. If he didn't believe in these projects, he has plenty of other options. From everything I've read, he's pretty much told all the stories he wants to in his universe, so to him, the appeal of doing these is that they are different.

Considering Kyle MacLachlan would have made a great Superman 15 years ago or so, I think he'll be great as the voice of Superman.

Death Of Superman on DVD? I'm there.

My real concern with all these projects (Death of Superman, New Frontier, Judas Contract, etc.) is how do you do justice to these stories in 75 minutes?

I liked the DCAU voice cast just fine, but as this is meant to be a completely separate project, I'm glad they're using different voices, and presumably, distinct art styles for each movie. The entire creative system at DC is based on having different people working on their properties. Why shouldn't the same apply to their animated productions? We've had over a decade of the DCAU cast. While they were great, I'd like to see them shake things up a bit. The fact that Bruce Timm is overseeing this is a promising enough indication of quality to me.