A Stylish Trilogy from DC

The team behind the new Justice League: Warworld movie shares their thoughts on the innovative summer home release.

- By Tom McLean -

If you ever needed proof that superheroes and animation are two great tastes that taste even better together, look no further than Justice League: Warworld

The new DC animated feature takes the publisher’s trinity of iconic heroes — Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman — and seamlessly inserts them into a trio of vastly different cinematic genres on the way to climactic showdown with the iconic comic-book villain Mongul.

Returning as DC’s trinity are Jensen Ackles as Batman, Darren Criss as Superman and Stana Katic as Wonder Woman. Joining them are Ike Amadi as Martian Manhunter, Troy Baker as Jonah Hex, Brett Dalton as Bat Lash, John DiMaggio as Lobo, Teddy Sears as Warlord and Robin Atkin Downes as Mongul.

Jeff Wamester directs Justice League: Warworld — his fourth DC animated feature — from a script by Jeremy Adams, Ernie Altbacker and Josie Campbell. Producing are Jim Krieg and Kimberly S. Moreau, with executive producer Michael Uslan and co-EPs Butch Lukic and

Sam Register. Animation on the feature was by Red Dog Culture House and Edge Animation Studio, both based in South Korea.

Playing with Different Genres

Even though the DC animated features are, well, features, Lukic describes the production process as more like a TV series than a feature, and his role as basically the showrunner. He says he wanted to do stories in different genres and, after more than three decades in the animation, decided there was no better time than the present.

“I wanted to do a Western, and I also wanted to do a barbarian sword and sorcery scene, and then I also wanted to do a black-and-white sci-fi ‘50s thing — basically based on Invasion of the Body

Snatchers,” says Lukic.

Those genres also hit home with Wamester. “When I read the script, I was like: ‘Holy crap! I get to do The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, a film noir and a Conan story — all in one big story,” he says. “It was really exciting to have that opportunity.”

Having worked on a fair number of animated superhero-centric DC and Marvel projects, Wamester says it was nice to work in genres that used different storytelling techniques. “It’s the tone that separates each one,” he says.

The Western sequence features Wonder Woman as a lone rider who rides alone into a dusty town and gets caught up in a scheme with Jonah Hex. Lukic says the sequence required terse dialog, bright colors and lot of dust and haze.

“But generally I was going more for the feel and look of … the ’60s or ’70s type of spaghetti Western,” he says, citing High Plains Drifter as a specific example.

Animating people is hard enough — animating horses poses its own special problems. Picking the shots kept things manageable — avoiding low angles and cutting before the action moved in a direction that was going to pose problems, Lukic says.

The second sequence moves to Skartaris, the fantasy world setting of Mike Grell’s cult-fave 1970s comic-book series Warlord. Batman stars here, not knowing how he arrived in this world but teaming up with Warlord to journey through Skartaris to stop the plans of the evil Deimos (voiced by Damian O’Hare).

Inspired by such sword and sorcery movies as

Conan the Barbarian and Krull, the story is patterned after the original version of King Kong, with the group of characters falling one by one as they travel to a final confrontation, Lukic says.

The third sequence is set in the 1950s, evoking the tone of classic Twilight Zone episodes. The goal here was to create tension and suspense — most of which was achieved by careful storyboarding and editing. “It was just more about the right cutting between the characters,” he says.

Black and white animation is a rarity — and a chance to experiment with an iconic style. “I didn’t want the guys just paint it in color, and then we would lay a filter of black and white — that just doesn’t work,” Lukic says. “So, it was more about picking the right shades. And obviously, a lot of it had to do with shadowing.”

Further paying tribute to classic cinema is a transition to a final sequence in color, a filmmaking move made famous by The Wizard of Oz. The finale connects the sequences and dovetails nicely with the DC style of superheroics. It also features some fun cameo appearances by fan-favorite characters such as the space bounty hunter, Lobo.

Wamester says his job relates to how things move on screen. “I get to say, when a character comes on, how do they move?,” he says. “What is in character versus what’s out of character?”

The Western sequence required a lot of build-up of suspense; the Warlord sequence was more about extreme violence; and the noir story had to convey a sense of mystery. “It was really fun being able to play in all three of those worlds, and then try to bring them together by the end,” Wamester says.

Suspenseful Sequences

In this case, each genre had its own demands. “The decisions you make on certain shots are very different, and the shot selection that you make,” he says. “How close? How far? Up shot? Down shot? How much [do] you reveal? What kind of moments are important versus others?”

That had to be communicated to the board artists, many of whom had to learn on the fly how to apply their skills to genres that don’t often come up in superhero animation.

“Shot selection has to be different. And you have to know how you go from here to there — it’s very important,” Wamester says

This is especially true in action sequences, Wamester says. “The moment before a shootout is going to be completely different from a sword fight,” he says. “Two guys with swords aren’t going to sit there staring at each other … They’re just gonna go at it. They’ll scream and go after each other. But when you have a situation with a gunfight, you’ll wait, and wait — you’re looking for that moment to beat everyone to it. So the tension that you build there is very different.” ◆

Justice League: Warworld will be available on July 25 to purchase digitally from Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and more. 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray discs will be available to purchase online and in store at major retailers.