Wonder Woman: Bloodlines is DC’s latest animated film. At New York Comic Con, Executive Producer, James Tucker, sat down with the press to discuss bringing a new Wonder Woman animated film to our screens.
In promotion for the recent Wonder Woman animated original, Wonder Woman: Bloodlines, the creative minds behind the solo feature came to the famed New York Comic-Con to provide insight on the latest incarnation of arguably the most famous female superhero, Wonder Woman, the Princess of Themyscira.
The Workprint sat down with James Tucker, executive producer of Bloodlines and multiple films in the latest rounds of DC’s animated movies, in a roundtable interview. His history with DC goes back to the late 90’s with contributions ranging from character design and storyboarding to producing.
Are you supposed to be in continuity with the recent DC live action films?
No, we are in continuity with our own continuity of the movies that we’ve been doing. So it’s [Wonder Woman: Bloodlines] not a sequel to the ‘09 Wonder Woman. It’s the Wonder Woman Rosario’s been playing since Throne of Atlantis, but we wanted to give her her own wedge of a story that takes place in the greater scheme of the continuity. Storywise, it connects to how Wonder Woman came to be in this continuity; it ties to Justice League: War a little bit; and it just shows more of what her life is when she’s not with the Justice League, which was something that was really important to me because the first Wonder Woman animation movie was pretty much an origin story. You didn’t get a lot of her supporting cast; you got a lot of the Amazon stuff, a little bit of Steve, but I wanted to show what was her life in Man’s world like. So this movie fills in a lot of that. That’s kind of what I wanted to do, to show kind of an example of what a Wonder Woman series would be like now.
What was the motive behind using many female characters?
I wanted to use a lot of her Rogues Gallery that never makes it into these movies, because you see, it’s always Cheetah, she’s in it, but she has a deeper bench of Rogues that never really make it into the animation or live action, and I just wanted to correct that. So we kind of a “villains incorporated” plot in this that I think is really fun.
Do you find it challenging to balancing multiple villains in the story?
It depends. With her villains, because they are haven’t gotten a lot of attention, it’s kind of a cameo fest; this is kind of like Wonder Woman’s version of Hush a little bit because it’s kind of cameos. So we don’t delve into their backstories too deep because it’s not that kind of story, but I definitely think, had it been a series, all her villains are rich enough that you can really spend time with them and develop them. So I’m hoping, I don’t know if this movie will lead to a series necessarily in this continuity, but there should be a Wonder Woman animated series. And I think there is enough material there to really rival what we’ve done with BTAS (Batman: the Animated Series) or Superman: the Animated Series, Justice League. I mean, she’s been a part of a lot of things that never given her own focus. So I hope this movie kind of starts showing people beyond Themyscira and Cheetah that Wonder Woman has a life that we can build continuity around.
So does this open doors for other Leaguers like Flash or Green Lantern to have their own films in this Universe?
Yeah, well Flashpoint Paradox was kind of a Flash-centered film, even though it wasn’t directly dealing with his life specifically. Aquaman has had a feature focus; Superman definitely has. Were it to go on, every character would get a focus, but that depends on Warner Home Video. If I was going into it like a comic book or there’s the main Justice League comic and then there are the offshoot books, but they’re all tied into each other somehow. So we definitely make mention of her life with the Justice League at this point so it’s connected. There will be a pay-off if you have been watching the other movies.
How do you think Bloodlines will affect the DC Animated Universe going forward?
I don’t know if it will affect it. I just hope it is one more thing that says, “Hey, Wonder Woman needs a series.” I don’t care about the rest of the Universe, as far as the movies, because that’s fine. I mean, we got this because the Wonder Woman live action was a big hit. So I was like “Yay,” and they don’t make us just make a movie of the live action movie; they just say “Make a Wonder Woman movie,” which is great because I’m like “Oh good, I can do stuff that hasn’t been done before, like I can use Doctor Cyber, I can use other villains that normally they don’t. This is about Silver Swan, and there is no way a live action movie would focus on Silver Swan before Cheetah. Anyway, so I’m hoping it leads to more of the women superheroes getting their chance to support a movie, and, luckily, live action is finally caught up. You have the Harley Birds of Prey movie, you got a Harley cartoon coming. So I think it’s changing, not as fast as it should, but it’s changing steadily. I would love to do more Wonder Woman movies. I mean, I love the character. I think, like Superman and Batman, she’s a good jumping off point for the characters that may be less relevant so the next Wonder Woman movie, I can put in, you know, I love Rose and Thorn; they’re very obscure characters from way back when, but they’re really cool characters. So, things like that, where you use a main character, and this is what I’ve been doing with all these movies, is using the main character as a way to backdoor lesser known characters into that Universe and get them exposure that they wouldn’t get on their own. Hopefully, it just leads to more Wonder Woman everything, that’s what I would like.
Does the movie explore Wonder Woman when she’s not fighting crime?
Pretty much, we set up where she’s been living, what happened to her when she first showed up on Man’s World. There’s nods to the [George] Perez Era of comics, there’s nods to the Greg Rucka run, we try to sample a little bit of the broad strokes of the best continuity that Wonder Woman has had in the comics, which is, admittedly, been spotty. But I think there’s enough in there you know we’ve read the comics.
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines is available on digital today. A physical release on 4K Combo Pack & Blu-ray Combo Pack will release on October 22.
Here’s the trailer for Wonder Woman: Bloodlines:
