In the third and final installment of my interviews with the crew from DC Animation at NYCC regarding the upcoming Justice League: War animated movie, I sat down with Director Jay Oliva. Jay is no stranger to directing animation, as he’s already directed Green Lantern: Emerald Knights and the excellent Batman: The Dark Knights Returns Parts 1 and 2, among other things.
Jay explained what makes Justice League: War different from Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. “It’s much more ensemble than Flashpoint. In Flashpoint, Flash was clearly the main one.” Cyborg does have a major arc in Justice League: War though. “In this one, Cyborg is the one the audience can empathize with more, because you see him as a regular guy, and then you see him become the hero he eventually does.” But from the sound of it, unlike in Flashpoint, the story will be more divided among the League members and not mainly focus on one hero. Jay explained, “(Cyborg) has more of an arc. Batman shows up and he’s Batman. There’s no Batman arc…He’s just Batman from beginning to end. He’s just a bad ass all the way through.”
I asked Jay if Geoff Johns, the writer of the Justice League comic that Justice League: War is based on, was involved in the script at all. Unfortunately, Jay didn’t know how much involvement Johns had with the script. “When I start, it’s usually after the script has been written. Then I take over and try to do my adaptation of that,” Jay went on to elaborate.
When you sit down with Jay, the first thing you’ll notice about him is that he very energetic. I think this comes from the huge level of enthusiasm he has for his work with Warner Brothers Home Video. He wants his animated movies to stand out. Jay explained, “You guys are paying 20 bucks for it. It’s on the same shelf as Man of Steel, Dark Knight, The Avengers. I have to be able to compete with that. I want you guys to say, “Hey, this looks like a good film,” and when you watch it, even though it’s animated, I want it to hold up with the live action stuff out there: balls to the wall action, good storytelling….I’m having fun with this stuff.”
When asked what storyline he’d like to turn into a film, he was very quick to answer. “I would do Gotham by Gaslight,” Jay said. He would go on to namedrop Gotham by Gaslight a few times in our conversation. The dude really likes Gotham by Gaslight. And looking at how he handled The Dark Knight Returns, I bet he could do a stellar job on the period piece Gotham by Gaslight. Warner Brothers, let Jay Oliva make Gotham by Gaslight!
Gotham by Gaslight features Batman taking on Jack the Ripper.
Jay also said he’s love to a Kingdom Come movie, but that he wasn’t sure “if we have the technology to do it. It’s too hard. It would have to look like Alex Ross’s watercolors…We don’t have five years for this. We have a one year turnaound.” The 76 minute limitation posed by the budget of the animated movies also comes into play. “I’d love to do 120 minutes,” Jay said, “But the animation studio could not physically do it. Hopefully we can do parts 1 and 2 or more if it sells well….Dark Knight Returns sold really well, so Home Video is seeing hey, maybe we can do two-parters.” I don’t know about you, but if Kingdom Come were done as a four-parter, I’d buy every release!
“Action, action, action.” That was Jay’s response when asked what we’re going to see in Justice League: War. “The comic is literally an invasion of Earth…It’s about a group of heroes who are powerful, but couldn’t take down Darkseid by themselves. So they have to band together to take down this greater evil. Personalities clash. Superman and Batman, whenever they meet they gotta fight. They’re so polar opposite…Ultimately, they become the team we all know and love,” Jay said. He also confirmed that we will see Apokolips, the home of Darkseid and his parademons in Justice League: War. But Jay also pointed out that, “We don’t see any New Gods, which I would have loved to put in there. It’s strictly just Darkseid and his parademons.”
Jay has worked for both DC and Marvel’s animation divisions and was candid about the differences between the two. “From my own experience, the DC stuff I work on, they leave us alone…I don’t have to show my storyboards to the president of animation…They trust us. They know that we’ll do good work,” said Jay. Comparitively, he said about Marvel: “At Marvel, there’s a lot of hands in there. Mind you, I haven’t worked for them since they were taken over by Disney…I would never have been able to get away with The Flashpoint Paradox at Disney. Never.” That said, he also mentioned that he would love to work for Marvel again one day, “but right now I’m enjoying the freedom I have here,” meaning at DC. Going by the quality of his output at DC, I hope Jay Oliva stays with them for a long time.
The February 4 release date for Justice League: War is approaching quickly. Have you made your pre-order yet?