One of the more anticipated live-action films of 2008 is Christopher Nolan's The Dark Night, a sequel to his 2005 hit Batman Begins. To stoke fans' hunger for all things Batman, DC and Warner Home Video is also bringing out Batman: Gotham Knight, a 6-part, direct-to-DVD movie that will bridge the gap between events in the two live-action movies.
Bruce Timms (Batman: The Animated Series) will be the executive director, and actor Christian Bale will return as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Not only that, but DC is going for an anime-style look for its classic cartoon hero.
“What you’re going to get from (Batman: Gotham Knight) is an animated Batman you’ve never seen before,” Gregory Noveck, DC Comics’ senior VP of Creative Affairs, told Wizard, “both from a storytelling standpoint and a stylistic animation standpoint.”
Batman: Gothic Knight - Six Separate Stories in One DVD
Six writers – Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets), Josh Olson (A History of Violence), David Goyer (Batman Begins), Greg Rucka (Queen and Country), Alan Burnett (Batman: The Animated Series) and Jordan Goldberg (producer of The Prestige) – will pen stand-alone stories for the DVD, which will be linked thematically. Three Japanese animation studios (Studio 4ºC, Production I.G and Madhouse) are rendering the stories under Timms' supervision.
“The idea is that, just like in the comic books, the DC Universe is full of infinite and varied stories, so we shouldn’t be locked into one animation style,” says Noveck, who helped put the whole thing together. “You will definitely get different visual versions of Batman. There will be a range of looks—for Bruce (Wayne) and Batman and the different characters.”
Ideally, Gotham Knight won't be a spoiler for the events in The Dark Knight, but "kind of like an added accent to that whole universe,” says Noveck. “If you’ve seen Batman Begins and you’ve seen The Dark Knight, (this) is something that may have happened in between.”
Is Paprika's Satoshi Kon Directing an Episode?
The biggest story associated with Batman: Gothic Knight is currently a rumour . Anime site Twitchfilm claims that acclaimed director Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Perfect Blue) will helm one of the segments. It says it received the information from French anime site Catsuka, but a search of that site turned up nothing. Until DC, Warner or Kon confirm this information, treat this news with a very large dose of salt.
Batman: Gothic Knight is scheduled for a July 2008 release, presumably right before The Dark Knight hits theatres.
Dominic von Riedemann - Dominic is the Animated Film Feature Writer, and winner of 11 Suite 101 Editors' Choice Awards.
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