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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Bruce Timm on Aquaman

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F.O.A.M.er Brandan E sent me a link to an interview with Bruce Timm over on the Think McFly Think blog, which features this brief moment concering Aquaman:

Are there any current plans for an "Aquaman" animated film?

No. We did developed an Aquaman script for a direct to video movie. Marketing decided it wasn't going to be profitable enough to release.

The comic book needs to be wiped clean and have a re-boot once a year, they’re not able to keep the fan base interested any longer then that.


First off, obviously its disappointing to hear Timm and Co. actually went to the trouble of writing an Aquaman script, only to have it be scrapped. He doesn't mention when it was written, so its possible Aquaman's high visibility in Brave and the Bold might have changed the marketing department's view of the character in the meantime.

Secondly, I'm not exactly clear what Timm is saying in the second paragraph--it seems like he's inferring that whatever fans Aquaman has, they get bored after about a year, so DC comes out with some new version of the character.

If that is what he's saying, then while I don't think he's exactly right, he's definitely getting at one of the big problems the character has had in the last twenty years or so.


Thanks for tip Brandan!

9 comments:

nf said...

There's also a sad part in there that the execs didn't feel Wonder Woman sold well enough to warrant a sequel movie as it was intended to being an origin story. I really liked that movie and hoped for more WW in that style.

David J. Cutler said...

Yes, Lauren Montgomery told me much the same thing on Deviant Art. From an exec's perspective, Wonder Woman, as great as it was, was a fairly big failure. If Green Lantern First Flight wasn't so far into production I dunno if it would have seen the light of day, either. We may have seen the end (for now) of non-Batman or Superman DC solo hero DTDVD movies.

I think Timm has a bit of a point about Aquaman as well--one thing I sometimes notice here is a persistent feeling of disagreement among a lot of us about who/what the "real" Aquaman is. Trying to cater to so many people who grew up with so many different versions of the character must be very difficult for DC.

Unknown said...

wow. that's so sad. i feel sort of crushed an/or defeated.

IADW said...

That was a hard bit of news to wake up too.

While you can understand they'd want all the DVD's to sell like Justice League: The New Frontier, you'd also think that they'd be aware less exposed characters wouldn't due to the inability to have the big guns on the cover and factor that in to grading the films successes.

Aquaman misses out on making a splash again, yet remains one of the most big (or little) screen friendly characters in the DC stable, and the Judas Contract falls for the Teen Titans... very sad stuff.

Count Drunkula said...

I think Wonder Woman was the best of the animated movies DC has released, narrowly beating The New Frontier. It's really disappointing to learn that it sold so poorly.

As for Timm's comments on the Aquaman movie, well, nothing he said was at all surprising. It's not great to hear, but it's not a surprise.

Louie Joyce said...

Damn. Not particularly surprising, but it's hard to hear it stated as cold as that.

Anonymous said...

Very Sad, Brave and the Bold has brought Aquaman to the forefront again. What I think needs to truly happen is Geoff Johns grabs hold of the character and hits him with a rebirth series. Geoff knows how to bring out the best in the characters he is writing.

rob! said...

Yeah, we don't know when that script was written and pitched--things might be different now.

But hearing that the WW movie was a failure isn't a good sign for any non-Big Two animated movie. Maybe the shorts are the way to go.

Greg van Eekhout said...

We can still hold out hope for an Aquaman short as an extra on a future DVD release. They've already done it for the Spectre, and Batman: Under the Red Hood is purported to include a Jonah Hex short. So maybe Aquaman will still get his turn.