When the Batgirl movie was canceled, DC fans criticized the live-action aspect of the franchise. DC’s animation is well appreciated among the fandom, however, from time to time, it has been subjected to its fair share of problems as well. They’re infamous for blatantly canceling movies right before they are about to grace the screens.
Toonzone News participated in a roundtable press conference at New York Comic Con 2016. Several questions were exchanged between them and the cast of the Justice League Dark animated feature film. The crew members included actors like Jason O’Mara (Batman) and Mark Ryan (John Constantine) and director Jay Oliva, along with producer James Tucker and character designer Phil Bourassa.
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Why was Batman: Assault on Arkham Sequel canceled?
Batman: Assault on Arkham was more focused on the Suicide Squad than the actual hero in the title of the movie. The movie was set in the game universe of Batman: Arkham and it revolved around Task Force X infiltrating the Arkham Asylum to break Riddler out of there. However, the team of DC villains were forced to fight Arkham’s inmates and Batman, resulting in a chaotic night. The co-director of the film, Jay Oliva, was planning for a sequel to this movie, but the idea was ultimately trashed because he left Warner Bros. Animation.
What does the director have to say about the Batman movie?
The new team began by asking the co-director of the movie, “You said that you used the animation to test live-action ideas. Was that true in Assault on Arkham?” Oliva then explained about the progression of the movie and how it was rather focused on Suicide Squad to the interviewers,
“Oh, yeah, of course. The fact that Assault on Arkham was so well received, I’m pretty sure, was a pretty good reason for them to say, ‘We should try Suicide Squad.’ I’m pretty sure that’s what they were doing. Hopefully we can do a sequel to that because I had an idea to do Assault on Arkham part 2, but I don’t know. We’ll see.”
The co-director was asked about the theme of the movie, “Tone-wise, is this movie darker than Assault on Arkham?” to which Jay Oliva replied to the news team,
“No, Assault on Arkham was pretty dark because we had to base it on the video game universe, so it has a very different tone. This is like what we’ve done in the past, but there’s a horror aspect. It’s not for children. We made it very adult because I wanted to be true to the genre of horror films, but I like it because it’s a mystery, as opposed to the other ones where it’s like, ‘Here’s a threat, we have to figure out how to stop it.’ Now it’s a mystery. What is happening exactly and how do we solve it? That’s how we introduced all the different characters. And actually, all the characters have different arcs, from Zatanna to Jason Blood. They all have different arcs that all kind of tie together at the end.”
The co-director explains the theme of the movie and how the entire tone was influenced by the game universe. He also specifies that the movie is targeted towards adults due to the dark tone.
Source: Anime Super Hero
