Son of Batman Premieres at WonderCon

Son of Batman, the latest film from the DC Animated Universe (via Warner Bros.) made its world premiere Friday night (April 18) at WonderCon at the Anaheim Convention Center in California.  After the film unspooled on a large screen in the convention center arena (which holds around 9,000 people), fans were treated to a panel featuring stars Jason O’Mara (Batman), Sean Maher (Nightwing), Stuart Allen (Damian) and Xander Berkeley (Kirk Langstrom), along with producer James Tucker, director Ethan Spaulding, designer Phil Bourassa and dialogue director Andrea Romano.

The film is based on Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert’s Batman and Son run in the comics and is part of the new continuity being established in the DC Animated Universe similar to the New 52 in the books themselves. While it was cool to watch the movie on a big screen (since they’re direct-to-home releases), I won’t get into any kind of review here – that’s coming later.

Jason O’Mara does fine work in his second outing as the Dark Knight after Justice League: War, and admitted on the panel that he had a bit of trouble finding the right voice for the character on that previous film. Asked by a fan during the question-and-answer part of the panel about taking on a role either voiced or played in live action by a long list of distinguished actors, O’Mara replied, "It may have happened subconsciously, but I didn't want to repeat previous performances and just truthfully play the character in the moment. So I had to tune out everything that had come before and try to create something as unique and authentic as I could."

James Tucker asked by moderator Rick Sands about the violence in the film – this is definitely not an animated movie for kids, as it features quite a bit of graphic bloodshed. “They keep moving the line,” Tucker admitted. “We have to get a PG-13 rating so we just do the film, submit it and see what happens.” He argued that their competition is video games and other “edgy” entertainment. Questioned about how they chose which parts of Morrison’s long-running story to include, the producer replied, “We didn’t have 20 hours to tell the complete comic book story, so we had to pick and choose. (main villain Deathstroke) was in the arc from the beginning -- there were certain iconic things that we wanted to touch on and we're not done yet."

That “not done yet” remark hung in the air, but Tucker, Spaulding, O’Mara and Romano all deflected the question of whether the Son of Batman story would continue in a new film or whether more adaptations of popular arcs from the comics were on the way. The most uncomfortable moment of the panel, however, came when a fan questioned whether DC Animation and Warner Bros. Pictures in general are even interested in other DC characters besides Batman.

“It seems like you are so dependent on Batman across all of Warner Bros.,” the fan complained. “Do you even like the other characters in the DC universe?”

Moderator Rich Sands cut the questioner off, telling the panel they didn’t have to answer that, but it was a slightly embarrassing moment for sure. Asked who he would like to see onscreen, the fan mentioned Hawkman and more of Aquaman, to which someone onstage (I didn’t see who) answered, “Guess you didn’t see (animated TV series) The Brave and the Bold.”

Things settled down after that, but the moment was perhaps indicative of the uneasy relationship that DC and its fans have often had lately.

Son of Batman arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on May 6.

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