Isn't it sad that I can't think about anything Wondey without lamenting about what might have been?

I miss the halcyon days of, "________ is going to be playing WW"

Either way, good for Nathan!

alexreager | February 07, 19:31 CET

So is this Joss' should-have-been deal? It was going to be a movie, written by Whedon? Now it's a cartoon, direct to DVD? Yikes.

filops | February 07, 19:34 CET

This is a cartoon project completely unrelated to Joss' former project. Nathan said as much at the FX panel when he talked about doing this.

rose ayn | February 07, 19:47 CET

filops, I was going to say the same thing. It could have been such a grand adventure, chock full of pathos, brilliant special effects, and at the heart of it all one of the few movies about FEMALE heroic figures to be featured on the big screen. And now they've cheapened to the a toss-off direct-to-dvd project.

I am soooooooooo disappointed, to a level that almost surmounts the feeling I had the Christmas night when my father said he was going to start a fire in the fireplace so that old Santa bum couldn't come down the chimney.

O-o

Yes, I am warped. Things like this don't help.

*sigh*

blanetalk | February 07, 19:54 CET

It won't be the same without Morgan Freeman.

He mentioned this on the FX Con panel with Elizabeth Rohm and Nick Brendon (think it was in Pt 4).

And I suspect this will be another of the Bruce Timm animated features alongside 'Superman: Doomsday' (with Adam Baldwin and James Marsters), 'Justice League: The New Frontier' (with David Boreanaz) and 'Batman: Gotham Knight' so nothing much to do with the live action film Joss is no longer working on (though it may well have been given the go-ahead after that fell apart).

Saje | February 07, 19:54 CET

Ack! ... I posted before Rose's post appeared. So I guess I take back the overwrought emotion of the previous post.

Thanks, Rose, for the update.

blanetalk | February 07, 19:56 CET

There's no harm in this. If it's good and makes some money, that will indicate some audience interest in Wonder Woman and increase the chances of a future live action movie. If it's not good, it won't necessarily hurt future prospects since expectations for a project of this type are not high.

janef | February 07, 22:52 CET

Hmm, if it is Bruce Timm then my expectations are extremely high, the guy is a great talent and has pretty consistently delivered excellent animated TV and films for 15-20 years.

Do you mean mainstream expectations janef or do you just feel that animation isn't capable of producing real drama ? Cos I sincerely doubt that Nathan is approaching it thinking "Oh well, it's only a cartoon after all, doesn't matter one way or the other".

(regarding live action, I doubt Wonder Woman's gonna make it to film until they've tested the waters with the Justice League movie - and that's been pushed back too)

Saje | February 07, 23:49 CET

Nathan Fillion and Keri Russell are working together on this working together on this project. I wonder if Wonder Woman will be baking any pies. ^_^

Cyantre | February 07, 23:55 CET

Cyantre, you took the words right out of my mouth! If we can get Andy Griffith as Steve Trevor's dad, we got a real winner here.

impalergeneral | February 08, 01:55 CET

I wonder what the Bad Supervillain Ruining My Day Pie would be ;)

magnus carnage | February 08, 07:22 CET

Yay, more Nate. Always good. But Saje is right, Wonder Woman will not appear in a standalone live action until after Justice League is completed. It is the same reason a sequel to Superman Returns was mothballed. They want to cast the League and then allow each of them to have their own movie for actor continuity sake, well that and Marvel Studios has been blowing DC out of the water for a few years.

Along the same lines, the Lions Gate Marvel animated direct to DVD stories are trumping anything DC has been sending straight to DVD. The best thing I can remember from DC is Mask of the Phantasm back in the 90s.

But all that said...yay more Nate!

doyn | February 08, 07:41 CET

The Lions Gate Marvel films might be trumping DC's direct-to-DVD films in terms of sales, but in terms of quality ?

"Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" was great, agreed.

"Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero" was pretty good IMO and concluded the original incarnation of Batman: The Animated Series in as satisfactory a manner as we were going to get at the time until the re-vamp, Batman Beyond, and Justice League became realities. It was also awesome as a Freeze story, despite the fact that they undid it to a degree in The New Adventure...but then it was redeemed with an episode of Batman Beyond anyway, so it all evened out in the end and didn't become a let-down for a favorite character.

"Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman" kinda sucked but it would've made a decent enough episode if it had been featured within the series. Plus it featured Penguin & Bane not sucking (I usually hated the Batman: TAS version of Penguin, his eps were some of the most mediocre or cringe-worthy).

"Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker" was gold.

"Superman: Brainiac Attacks" wasn't in-continuity with the rest of the Timm-verse and was a bit of a let-down even though I was able to enjoy some of the Clark/Lois stuff (just that they changed the voice actor for Lex that made it really hard to like in spots).

"Superman: Doomsday" was pretty satisfying and looked awesome, even if it came up a bit short in the impact department.

Haven't seen the Teen Titans "Trouble in Tokyo" DVD 'cause I've only seen a bit of that series.

In comparison, Ultimate Avengers was okay (with nice enough art design and animation), its sequel was great, Invincible Iron Man blew, and Dr. Strange wasn't bad, objectively (personally I enjoyed it a lot because it was lightyears better than Iron Man as an origin story/character study and the fantasy/horror creatures and animation made it a visual feast).

I'd say, quality-wise, DC's come up with more hits than misses and, at the very least, the two companies are maybe equals at this point, quality-wise.

It's a bit of an unfair comparison anyway since a lot of DC's animated movies are spin-offs/pieces of the Batman/Superman cartoons and sometimes dependant on watching those shows to get the full impact, while Marvel's efforts are all original takes on their respective comic book origins (with inspiration and direct lifting from the Ultimate line).

Kris | February 12, 03:57 CET