The Extras - "Batman: The Long Halloween" Deluxe Edition with screenwriter Tim Sheridan

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

Screenwriter Tim Sheridan talks about breaking into writing for animation and the path that led him to working on "Batman: The Long Halloween."  This seminal work from writer Jeph Loeb and legendary artist Tim Sale has impacted filmmakers from Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" trilogy to the recent Matt Reeves "The Batman."  Tim Sheridan gives insights into the development of the project at DC and why it took so long to bring it to the DCU animated movies collection.  He also reveals why it was developed as a two-part film with a vision toward a single film in the deluxe edition.  We also talk about the amazing voice talents of Jensen Ackles (Batman), Naya Rivera (Selina Kyle/Catwoman), Josh Duhamel (Harvey Dent/Two-face), Julie Nathanson (Gilda) and others.  And we discuss the release of the Deluxe Edition, available for the first time in 4K.Purchase on Amazon:Batman: The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition 4KBatman: The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition DigitalBatman: The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition bookOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers.  Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals.  www.otakumedia.tvThe Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host. Today, I have a very special guest on to talk about the DC Universe animated movie,

Batman The Long Halloween. Tim Sheridan is the screenwriter of the film, which was originally released as two movies, part one in July and part two in August of 2021. The film stars voice actors Jensen Ackles as Batman, Josh Duhamel as Harvey Dent Two-Face, the late Naya Rivera as Selena Kyle Catwoman, and Julie Nathanson as Harvey Dent's wife Gilda. The animated films have been well received by fans and critics alike and they are now being released as one film in a deluxe edition with additional mature content on September 20th here in the U.S. This includes releases on digital Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD combo pack. Hi, Tim. It's a pleasure to welcome you to The Extras.

Hi, Tim. It's The Tim Show. The Tim and Tim. Hey, I don't know if you remember, but a few years back, we worked together. You came into our old offices for the 50th anniversary of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? collection and also Peanuts. We were filming that same day, which was also, I think, maybe that was the 75th anniversary for that one, actually.

But Frank Walker was there. Gray Griffin was there. Ethan Spaulding. Do you remember that? Oh, like it was yesterday. And what I remember even more than that are the amazing, those amazing box sets. Oh, yeah.

The Scooby-Doo is the haunted house, you know, set. And the Peanuts one is the doghouse. It's the doghouse. Yeah. And it's coming up on the holidays. So maybe for the listeners out there, I think I actually have one or two in my garage. I may do a promotion. Ping me if you guys are interested in that.

That might be fun. Those are actually fairly expensive. You want them. I wish I was in the, I'm in a different room in the house, but there's another room in the house where I could have set up where those are actually on the shelf because they're so great to display. I love it. I'm not here to sell anything. I'm just like, you know, I'm a fan. So I really had a great time. We worked on them together. So it's kind of more of just talking about that and these great products and movies that we get to work on and their releases and physical media. But I see in the background some really cool stuff on your shelf. And for the listeners who can't see, there's a Spider-Man poster and all kinds of stuff, which just basically reminds me that you've worked on a ton of comic books and animated TV shows and movies. I like to say that I deal in nostalgia for folks around my age.

I've been very, I've been so lucky. I've gotten to do a lot of stuff that's, you know, rooted in 80s animation and things that I grew up with. You can see there's some Transformers behind me. I got to do some Transformers for Netflix. There's Marvel, which was a big deal for me as a kid. Spider-Man was the first superhero I ever got into. In fact, it was cartoons is what got me into Spider-Man. It was Spider-Man and his amazing friends, which I used to call Spider-Man and his amazing furniture, because in the opening credits, would be like and his furniture in his apartment would spin around and become computers and um so so that was my my gateway

and then i got into batman and that was my my big gateway into dc but uh yeah i've gotten to do all kinds of neat stuff key man masters of the universe is a big one i got a poster you kind of can't see the way the light's hitting it but there's a poster back there for that as well. And that was for Netflix. Is that right? Yeah, Netflix. So Kevin Smith is the showrunner on a show called Masters of the Universe Revelation. And I was one of the writers for season one. And I had the opportunity to go back and work with Kevin on season two, which is Masters of the Universe Revolution. and work with Kevin on season two,

which is Masters of the Universe Revolution. And that is currently in production now. So that'll be coming to Netflix in the future. I had a great time with that. I mean, talk about like, it's just 80s nostalgia. Like just- That's the era I grew up with too. Spider-Man and all of those TV shows. And I think Batman,

which we're going to be talking about today, I got more into Batman as I grew older because he's just that kind of character. Yeah. I mean, look, the 80s and being a 10-year-old kid or nine-year-old kid, it was an interesting time to get into Batman. You know, at the time when we had the Tim Burton movie coming out on screens for the first time. And, you know, we had The Dark Knight Returns from Frank Miller. And I remember early on, A Death in the Family was one of the early books that I got into. And it was, you know, the very famous story where Jason Todd, the second Robin, was killed by the Joker. Really heavy stuff. But that period in pop culture and in comics related pop culture

is just integral to who I am as a storyteller now. I didn't know how to put words to it then. But now I look back on it and I know what I felt at the time. It was things like the 1986 Transformers, the movie and Death in the Family and things like that, that didn't talk down to me as a kid. They presented concepts that might be challenging for kids, but they just sort of trusted that we would reach for them and we could grasp them and stretch to reach them. And I always say that, you know, that's how we grow, right? We stretch and reach for those things. And that's how that works. So that to me is everything in terms of storytelling in this part of the genre verse. And particularly when I look back now,

I think about stuff that Marv Wolfman was doing at that time. Marv is a very famous creator and editor and comic books. And he co-created the new Teen Titans and he ran the Transformers TV show for a time in the eighties when I was watching it. And I recently got to meet him and do a little bit of work with him because I was writing Titans for DC. And I got a chance to tell him how much it meant to me that I felt like his stories weren't written knowing that a kid was reading them. They were just stories and they were great stories. And I got to sort of understand story through that. I wasn't going to really go back into how you got into writing,

but I think what you're just talking about leads me into that question. So your interests start then and then you start writing for comic books or how did that work? Yeah, I came to comics after animation and TV. Actually, comics start writing for comic books or how did that work? Yeah. I, I came to comics after animation TV, actually comics late for me. That's the most recent development in my career, but this was my backyard. This was the stuff I loved and grew up with and never really outgrew. And I remember sitting at San Diego comic-con as a fan attendee and sitting in the back of Ballroom 20 and watching for the first time, the Flashpoint Paradox animated movie written by my friend, Jim Krieg and produced by my friend, James Tucker. I'm going to say my friend because I just love

these guys. I want everybody to know that I think they're my friends. And it literally changed my life. I was sitting there and I was kind of unsure about what I was doing and what I was going to do, what the projection was for my career. And when I saw that movie, everything made sense. I said, this is what I want to do. I loved the Flashpoint story, but seeing it on screen come to life in this new way, I said, this is what I want to do. I loved the Flashpoint story, but seeing it on screen come to life in this new way, I said, this is it. There's something about this. So I worked hard and eventually got to meet Jim Krieg years later. And Jim hired me to work on a show called Justice

League Action that he was producing at Warner Brothers. And that was the first stuff I wrote in animation. And then shortly thereafter, he asked me if I wanted to co-write with him the adaptation of Reign of the Superman for as a feature. And of course, I, you know, Reign of the Superman were, in fact, the very first Superman comics I ever bought. I was a Batman kid and I didn't even buy Death of Superman because it wasn't the gateway for me.

But there was something about the posters and the promise of Reign of the Superman with these four different Supermen and one of them could be real and who is it? And the mystery surrounding it was so exciting and so big and epic that that's what got me into Superman comics. And then out of nowhere, they asked me if I want to help out on the movie. And that's with Jim and James Tucker,

who made the Flashpoint Paradox. So for me, that's the paradox, the craziness of my life is that I sat there in that room and said, this is what I want to do. And then I got to do it with the guys who inspired me. And that is what led to doing more. And then I got to do it with the guys who inspired me. And that is what led to doing more movies and doing things like The Long Halloween for Warner Brothers. But that was it. It was coming at us as a fan and realizing that, you know, that there was a whole well of information, not only information, but a love and a deep, deep love that I have for these corners of the, of the multiverse and maybe getting a chance to lend my voice to it. And, and very happily, I'm very grateful that I've gotten to do that. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of the Extras podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. It's like a great testimonial for Comic-Con too, because so many people go who aren't just fans, but they actually do aspire to get into the industry. And they have all those different rooms with the different classes you can go to and you can show your work. And that's more of the origins of what Comic-Con was. They were famous for walking in with their portfolio, you know, and getting work. And

then now they're famous, you know? Yeah. And of course, Jim Craig has been a real mentor to a lot of great young writers like yourself. Alan Burnett and Jim Creek really fostered a whole new generation of writers in animation and comics. Well, why don't we talk about Batman, The Long Halloween? I mean, this has got to be one of the more, you know, beloved comic series has got to be one of the more, you know, beloved comic series for Batman fans. And it was originally released, if I have this correct, as a 13 issue comic book back in the 90s. Yeah, Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale. And it is one of those high marks in comics, not just Batman history. You know, it's it is beloved with. It is beloved for good reason. It's an excellent story,

an excellent book. Because of Jeff's story and the concept, but also because of Tim Sayles' work, putting film noir onto the comic book page in a way I don't think people have seen in a long time. So it rightfully earned its place very quickly. The thing is, when I came in, we did Reign of the Superman and we would talk about what was still out there that hadn't been adapted and that hadn't been put on screen. And the number one thing fans always said and the number one thing we would say internally was the long Halloween. But, you know, because it's so, so beloved, I think it was a little bit of a third rail. I think a lot of people felt a little intimidated by it, but not just intimidated by it, but also some people said you can't make that. It's unfilmable because of the way it works and because it's so much in

the book about what Tim Sale brings to it visually, that can you tell that story without it being, you know, drawn by Tim Sale? So these were questions that people had, and they hadn't quite been able to figure out. And then along came Butch Lukich. Butch has a storied career from early days on Batman, the animated series. And, you know, storied career from early days on Batman, the animated series. And, you know, he was on Batman Beyond was, you know, nearly every, I think, episode, you'll see his name on them as a brilliant artist and director. And Butch ran the Justice League action show. That was the first thing that I worked on. And then he was given a chance to make the new age of DC animated movies. And the long Halloween was sitting there and it needed somebody to say, I think we can do this.

And here's how we do it, you know, visually. And he he talked about trying to figure out how to capture Tim Sale's aesthetic. to figure out how to capture Tim Sayles' aesthetic. But very quickly, I think he just determined that you were never going to be able to do justice to Tim Sayles' work if you were trying to ape it in animation. It wasn't designed for animation, and it would only ever pale in comparison to his work. And so why would you even go down that road? And I think that's what a lot of people thought and why they wanted to stay away from it. But Butch coming in and creating a new universe of movies had the ability to create a new house style for those movies. And coming in with a new style and a new aesthetic for the movies was what he was able to

bring to it. And it was able to sort of differentiate it ultimately from Tim Sayles' style. That meant that story became pretty darn important. And I can't believe that I got the call to come in and adapt this book that I love so much. How did that happen? What was that about? Jim called me. You know, like I say, Butch knew my work. I came in at the very end of the season, the one and only season of Justice League Action,

which is a crime, by the way, because it's a terrific show. I hope people find it, you know, now in these years as well. I came in at the end and got to work with Butch and obviously with Jim and Alan. But Alan was retiring and Jim Krieg was taking over as the producer on, on the movies. And Jim and I had done some Scooby-Doo stuff together as well. And we'd been working, you know, on a lot of projects at that point and we had a good shorthand as well as,

you know, with Butch. And so they said, what do you think? What do you think about the long Halloween? How do you do it? So I had to come in with a, you know, an idea and a pitch on how we do it. And my pitch, quite frankly, was, was impossible, which I said, we have to do it exactly as it is in the book, which is very much a youthful fans approach to, you know, how, how we should do it. We shouldn't change anything. We should keep it at be faithful. Yeah. And I think, I don't know, it was probably Jim was just like, well, then it's just the book,

you know, which the book is amazing. But when you're making a movie, a movie is different than a book. And so, first of all, it's not possible to just translate a book into a movie without making some changes to make it cinematic.

But also, I think we thought of it in terms of, it's a celebration of the source material. It should be a movie that surprises you, but inspires you to go back and read the book, pick it up again, because nobody ever wants to, we don't want to replace the source material. We're just here to celebrate the source material. And I think once we understood that, we kind of unlocked it for ourselves. So we felt a little more free. We could be as faithful as possible, but make sure we were making the changes we needed to keep it cinematic and make it feel like film noir. But I'll tell you the big wake up call for me was they said, well, OK, break out the story for 85 minute movie. Go go do that. Right. Which is your typical length for a DC universe animated

movie, right? Yeah, it's a good length for them. Sometimes they're 75. Sometimes they can get up to, you know, 85. But that is what we were looking at. But even if it was a two hour movie, you know, I went home and I sat down and I started plotting it out. And I'm like, there's no way to do this in 85 minutes and have it still feel like the long Halloween, because it's a story that is, it has, it's unique in that it is completely centered around the calendar year right calendar year it's 13 issues that take place monthly and holidays you know the the mysteries around killings these serial killings that are happening on specific holidays each month and if you were to just condense that into 85 minutes, it just would have been like a killing

every two minutes in the movie, a lead up to the killing and then moving on to the next killing it. To me, I said, I came in and I said, that's just a snuff film at that point. Like there's so much more richness to this story as it played out over the course of 13 months, you know, in the comics. In an ideal world, we're doing a 13 minute or 13 episode series, you know, and doing like that. But that wasn't our mandate. Our mandate was make this a movie. And I said, listen, I think I can do this in two movies. And Butch and Jim were on board right away, but they had to go sell it to the guys upstairs. And I wasn't in that room when they went in and had to make that sale, but they did. And they came back and they said, yep, we got two movies. So how are you going to do that? Hot shot.

Right. You got your wish. Be careful what you wish for, because then it became, all right, well, how do I really do this? I assume people who are listening to this may have seen part one and part two. But if you've seen part one and part two, you know that part one is a shorter section of the calendar and part two covers a longer section of the calendar. It wasn't an even split down the middle just because story wisewise that didn't make the most sense in the adaptation in terms of for these to be movies that stood on their own, it needed to sort of be cut where we cut it. So part two ended up being a bit more difficult to figure out how to make all the parts work to get us where we needed to go. But I still took the challenge and ran with it. And I think what we came up with was a love letter to this

story and to the book. And we did it in the best way we could do it in terms of splitting it over two movies with an eye always toward what will this play like as one movie cut together as one film? How will it look and will it still work? And, you know, that's the excitement of getting to watch it now in the deluxe edition. Yeah. And I don't recall there being too many before this film where obviously you had the original, the Dark Knight DC animated movies. That was a two-parter. And then there were one or two others, I think, but it's, it's not common for the DC universe animated movies to be split into, into two. So it's a bit of a gamble, but it had been done before.

Well, you know what we did? We did, um, Death of Superman and I did Reign of the Superman, right? And that was a essentially a two parter. And they ended up cutting those together, much the same way that we've done with Long Halloween, into the Death and Return of Superman release that they that came out. So it's not common in the DC Universe animated movies. But for I think fans, look, I'm a fan. I think I can speak for some fans when I say I wanted to see The Long Halloween play out as as one movie without there being, you know, we released them close to each other. So there was really only like a month in between. Yeah, yeah, just a month, right?

Yeah. If you had had to wait a year, you know, for part two, that would have been agonizing as a fan. So, and by the way, that's just a trick of the calendar of the production schedule. There's a strange thing that happened. You know, there was a, there's a movie called Superman, Man of Tomorrow that I wrote. That was actually the third movie that I did with Butch and Jim. And the first two were Long Halloween Part One and Two. They got switched up in the production order for a bunch of reasons. And Man of Tomorrow came out first, and then Long Halloween One and Two came out next. But sort of these delays that happened in the production schedule ended up making it possible, I think,

for Long Halloween One and Two to be released closer together. I don't think anybody's ever talked about that. And I don't think the fans know that. For anybody who complained about having to wait a month for the second part, they have no idea how good they have it. I was going to ask you, because I was, I mean, having worked there and I have seen, you know, coming across the desk, you know, the schedule for the next three years or whatever, where they have all the different, you know, animated movies that are in production or in development or out to writers or so on and so forth to release them within a month. I mean, that's just the idea is

you can't do two movies and then release them within a month. I mean, like it's a process. Usually there's going to be a period of time that you just need to get from the artwork and from all the studios that are, you know, making the movie itself. And it was it was just this this sort of trick of the schedule that happened, I think, that allowed for it. And it was you know what it is. And I've talked about this on I think on another podcast because I think Butch Lukach talked about it, which is the reason for it is actually kind of a funny footnote, which is Long Halloween had to kind of pause for a little bit because Matt Reeves was brought in to make the Batman live action movie. And there was some question early on about whether he was going to adapt the Long Halloween straight out. And, you know, we were already in production and we would have ended up coming out to market before his movie. So we kind of got a little pause in the process. Man of Tomorrow moved up in the schedule. And then eventually Matt Reeves ended

up going kind of in a different direction. And it freed us up to be able to get Long Halloween back up and running and then obviously out in a timely way so that, like I say, the, there was only that month in between. Now you have had to wait a year for the deluxe edition, but, um, but Hey, you know, well, I mean, you can find it. If you Google it, you can find that, that there's articles written or whatever, probably from your other time you did, did some press on it. But when I saw the Batman and I would like to get your take, I mean, that is a noir. It is Batman as detective, which is very much what Batman is in The Long Halloween.

Yeah, he's clearly, I mean, look, he's talked about it very publicly. I mean, he's pulling from that. I mean, look, Chris Nolan did too. I mean, this is the reason why The Long Halloween was this sort of thing that was out there ready to be adapted for animation. It's because it has meant so much to so many people, people who have gone on to have great careers as storytellers themselves, like Chris Nolan and Matt Reeves. And there's no getting around it. If somebody's making a Batman show or movie or comic today is going to find some inspiration in The Long Halloween because it is such a seminal work. It's so important in the Batman mythology. So you can obviously see that in the Batman,

you know, and there's some real specific things. In fact, I have no idea what their plans are, but I still see a possibility where they could fully adapt could fully adapt, uh, the long Halloween. Is it live action you mean? Sure. In that universe, uh, with Matt Reeves story. Um, and Matt call me like, uh, you know, I'll help out. The extras is a production of Otaku media, producers of podcasts, behind the scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes. Well, the film is called The Long Halloween and it starts off with

Halloween and it ends with Halloween and we're coming up on Halloween. Obviously, this is a great time of the year to watch the film, but it covers all of the different holidays. And I thought that thematically, the idea of holidays are time to celebrate usually. But it brought in that whole element of family, which you weave in into the movie. It's got Commissioner Gordon's family, his relationship with his wife, Harvey Dent and Gilda. Talk a little bit about that. I thought that was a really fun part of the story. Thank you.

And I think that what we had an opportunity to do because we were translating this story for the screen, was to sort of mine the book for themes that we felt would work really well in the movie, and really shine a light on those in a way that would enrich parts of the story that maybe you would be sort of wanting more of a deep dive in if you read the book. You know know it in some ways there's a little bit of uh Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead with some scenes where there are scenes that exist in the movie that are not in the book but I really made it a point to try and make sure that those scenes could have happened in the course of the 13 issues, you know, entrances and exits and something else was happening over here while the thing that you're reading in the book is happening. So I

wanted to make sure that it could live alongside the book as an enrichment of certain pieces of the story. And then the other way around where we de-emphasized some things with that the book gets to sort of enrich and bring more light to. And the concept of family is huge in the book, but it's not overt. Jeff and Tim are much more, I think, subtle about, you know, how they explore those themes in the book. Whereas when you have those themes in the book. Whereas when you have omniscient narrator voice and things that you use in comics to help tell the story, we weren't using that because it's a tough thing to do on screen, but also in animation, it's very tough to get away with it. So we had to kind of come at scenes a little bit differently and explore themes a little differently. And one of the things for us was really hanging more of a lantern, as we say, on this concept of family and service to the city, service to Gotham City, and what that does to the families who serve it. And that's every family

from the Waynes to the Dentts to the Gordons to the Falcones. And basically everything that comes out of the story is involved in that relationship between the family and the city. Yeah. There's a cost to this public service that they're all, you know, every time that the bad light goes up and every time Harvey Dent gets a call and Gilda is like, you know, she needs him. And this is what I mean about the genius of the book. You know, they didn't hit us over the head with that in the book. But you have a book that's based around holidays. And when we think about holidays and the holiday killer, when we think about holidays, you think about family. That's a time when family gathers, usually. That's a thing that is so inextricably linked to what a holiday is that you may not have even known

that you were getting fed that piece of the story, but you were because the writing and the work and the art were so brilliant. So we highlighted that. We brought that a little bit. So we started the movie, like you say, on Halloween, and we actually showed a little bit of stuff that you don't see in the book. You know, what trick-or-treating, we all think of trick-or-treating when we think of Halloween. And we actually showed a little bit of, you know, stuff that you don't see in, in the book, you know, what trick or treating, like we all think of trick or treating when we

think of Halloween, what does that look like in Gotham city? What does it look like for the Gordons and the dents and the Waynes, you know, the Waynes being Bruce and Alfred, I guess, and, uh, and of course the Falconeys. Um, so, so that's how we started it. And, and, and of course, of course, the Falconis. So that's how we started it. And of course, ending it on Halloween felt like the right bookend. And there was a lot of inspiration we took also from the Halloween specials that they had done in the comics that led up to the long Halloween. There were some one-shot specials that they had done. And there's some great, great stuff in there. So whenever I think about some of the great scenes in the movie and things that we sort of added, a lot of that takes its cue from stuff that Jeff and Tim were already kind of suggesting and doing in the books, even before Long Halloween. That's how deep the,

you know, the reverence for the original stuff went for us and how much we wanted to, you know, help bring it to life. There was a, the Harvey Dent storyline with, with his wife, Gilda and everything. There was another line that I really loved. And it's again, it's, it's that Halloween thing where he says, um, I have a hate love relationship with candy. You have a hate love relationship with everything, right? Yeah. Yeah. And look, I mean, there's a little bit of a wink there i you know we're talking to the fans who know what's gonna happen to harvey you know you can't really be a fan of batman and not know

what the harvey dent story is and where it's. And so sort of acknowledging that right out the gate for the fans, for the diehard fans was an important thing. I think that line is one of the places where we did it, you know, where we wanted to make sure that we were planting the seed. So, you know, there's two sides to Harvey Dent. Right. Yeah. And the complexity of Gilda was, I don't know, it was really interesting. It was really fascinating and a great part of the story. And of course, Julie Nathanson brought a lot of depth to that character. She's so good. You know, that was the scariest thing, I will say, in the process.

I would say the biggest additions we brought to the story and, you know, where our voice kind of, as the filmmakers came in a little bit louder, I think, than the original comics was with Gilda. And we tried to really take great care to flesh out a story for her so that she didn't appear to be just a mechanism, a device that was telling us something about Harvey, but in fact had her own inner life and her own story that was playing out. But also we didn't want the story to just be about her reacting to what's happening with the men in her life, you know, which is always a thing you don't really want to do. And so it was a very complex character

to approach for the movie. And I think we were successful in some ways. And I think we could have done better in other ways, you know, as I look back on it now with, you know, with hindsight, but ultimately what we did served the story for the movie. And that's what we have to be as filmmakers most concerned with in the end is, you know, are we telling the story that we set out to tell and telling it the best way we can? And I think we managed to do that, but it was certainly the trickiest high wire act of the whole thing, just trying to get the story right. It was much

easier to get the embellishments to the relationship between Bruce and Carmine, which is stuff that is based around a panel in the book where a young Bruce sees his father do some emergency surgery on a desk on a young Carmine Falcone. And I thought, well, what if we just let the camera roll a little bit longer? What happened, what happened next? And how can it inform us about the relationship between the Waynes and the Falconis? And then also in a greater sense, the relationship between the law and the outlaws in Gotham and the places in which that relationship is not as neat and tidy as maybe we would expect it to be. And you're able to do that successfully, I think.

And to tie it into the Two-Face's origin with the coin as well. Right. Yeah, I thought that was a fascinating scene. And it comes a little later in the story, but it adds so much, you know, kind of back into the whole question of why is Bruce Wayne, why are the Waynes so tied in to, you know, to the crime family? I think it comes on Father's Day, right? And that's, that's the, that's the, uh, the great thing about the story as was written in the comics and what we got to do in the movie is each of the holidays have their own sort of, uh, you know, life to them. There

are things that we associate with those holidays and holidays and the themes that are explored in each of those moments in the story on each of those holidays are related to directly to those holidays. Alfred has a line in that part of the movie where he says to Dent and Gordon, who are suspicious of Bruce, you know, and his connections, they're the Wayne connections to the to the Falconis. And he says something like, well, will there ever connections, they're the Wayne connections to the to the Falcone's. And he says something like, well, will there ever be a time when the sins of fathers don't fall to their sons for redemption? That's a that's a heady, heavy thing to throw into the movie. But it is essential to the story of Bruce, who thinks that he's doing what he's doing as Batman to honor his parents. But the question becomes, what if I'm doing this not to honor them, but to redeem them? You know, what if they

weren't perfect? Which is the thing about Bruce in this movie is he's growing up. We see him, he's not a detective when this story starts, and he has to figure out how to be a detective. He's a young man growing still into adulthood, psychologically at least. And one of the great things that happens to us when we grow up is realizing that our parents are not monoliths and that their legacy is perhaps trickier to navigate than maybe we thought it was when we looked up to them as kids. And how do we navigate that now? And how do we go on and create our own legacy?

That's what Carmine is going through with his family. It's what Bruce is going through. It's, it's really what, what the Denser and the Gordons are going through as well. You know, that's, that's, that's the story. That's the backbone, the spine of the thing is all about, you know, the Gotham City families. Yeah, it's a great story. And the voice acting was tremendous. I mean, it probably goes without saying, but you have some amazing actors who are behind these voices. You got Jensen Ackles, who I had the pleasure to work with when he was a star of Supernatural and a number of things. He's always a pleasure to work with. And he's great as Batman. And Naya Rivera as Selina, Josh Duhamel as Harvey. I mean, you got old Katie Sackhoff was Poison Ivy. You just

had a great lineup of actors. Well, let's not move too far from Jensen for a second, because the minute that they told me that he had agreed to do this, I knew we were in safe hands. And then we got to that first recording session. And he delivered his first line, which I think is something dumb that I wrote, like, is there coffee? You know, he's waking up and he's he's had a night and he the complex with three, three words, the depth and complexity of that moment. He played that moment perfectly. He didn't go for a joke. He didn't you know, he just played it for real. And I thought, oh, gosh, we're safe.

And then and this is the way it is always whenever you cast anyone in a big role like this, you're always hoping that you're you know, they're going to be able to to do the thing and bring everything that they are and you know, to the role and make it right and make it sound right and feel right. And he's a great actor, Jensen. And I don't know if people even know how great of an actor he is, but he's a terrific actor. Not only is he just great to have around, I mean, he's actually just a terrific guy, but he brings, he's got the goods and he's been doing this for a while, you know, not to look at him because he, you know, he's eternally youthful, that, that jerk, but all

the rest of the age, you know, over here, But he came in and could bring so much. He had played Jason Todd in animation and he could bring the right level of kind of youthfulness and angst. This is now Jensen a few years later, and he got to bring a weightiness to Bruce that was earned by him, I think, in his career and his life. And while he's still young, you know, and he's still playing a young Batman, he gets to betray that at times with a real lived in, mature sounding guy who's got, you know, he's got things to do. Vincent was the perfect casting. And I'm just so, so grateful that we were able to get him and to bring this to life. Now you mentioned Josh Duhamel as Harvey Dent and I, I'm a, I'm a fan. I, I, I'm a fan of all of these, these folks. I don't think there was anybody who I came into

this and was not a fan of, but I, I didn't really expect to have the experience that I got to have with Josh Duhamel's work as Harvey Dent Two-Face. Maybe I underestimated him, you know, and that's on me. Because I think Josh is, once again, just a better actor than I think people could even know. And I think even in the record, I don't think I would have, I don't even know if I would have known until I saw the movie. Like when I saw the movie, and I saw Harvey's performance, I just can't imagine anybody else but Josh Duhamel playing that role. I just can't now. He's he just owns it. And he plays it perfectly. Now that's a difficult part to play, the duality of that character and not just the psychological duality, but then he literally is playing

these two versions of this guy. He handled it with absolute grace and a steady hand. And I was bowled over by his work as I was with the work of the late Naya Rivera, who I think when people see this movie, they know how much she loved doing it. You know, I remember at the record, the joy that she had, she was so excited to do it. She knew that it would be something that that her son would get to watch at some point. You know, I tried to warn her that it was a little waiting for, for a little kid, but at some point she was so excited about it. And, um, and we tragically, you know, lost Naya before the movie was, was released just before the movie was released. But I think it's, uh, her work as Catwoman is a testament to her her legacy you know she was a another

terrific actor who was perfect casting for Catwoman and I hope if people haven't seen the movie you know there's another great reason to watch this movie and it's to catch the work of of Naya as Catwoman who makes it her own and and I think makes it difficult for anybody to come in and follow in her footsteps. You were just saying that you were at the different voice recordings. What is kind of your role there at the recordings? I suppose Chris is there and Wes is there and you're there. So it's Wes's room, Wes Gleason, the casting and voice director extraordinaire, you know, that's, that's his space and where he does his work. And so the biggest

thing, if I'm lucky enough to be invited to sit in, the biggest thing is to keep my mouth shut until, until someone has a question, really. I mean, that's always the way it works. I'm there as the writer, as a resource for the producers and for Wes and other voice directors and the actors. When they hit a question that they don't, maybe they don't know what this line means or what it relates to or how, you know, you're sort of the keeper of that flame, the one who knows the whole story in and out and can be there to fill in the gaps. Now, having said that, Butch and Chris know the script and the story in and out. And what was interesting about working on these movies was I wasn't prepared for how prepared they were in those records. When Wes asked a question or the actor would ask a question, Butch would say,

no, it has to be this because, you know, X, Y, Z, because later on this is going to happen. And it's, it's funny. I just think as a writer, when you hear people talking about your script and they've clearly read it and taken it to heart and know it inside and out, I'm just like, yeah, but I just wrote that, you know, we can change it if it's not working for you guys, you know, it's, but you know, Butch came at it like, this is the script this is it and he knew he knew the answers to those questions to answer your question i was just there as a pretty face that's all i was in the course some coffee uh yeah no really they didn't need me at all but certainly as a fan and as the guy who

put pen to paper adapting this story, I was thrilled to be get to just to get to be in the room to see it, you know, being brought to life by these brilliant actors. I don't want to not mention Chris Palmer, the director of The Long Halloween and Man of Tomorrow, who was just, you know, another integral key part of this process, you know, another integral key part of this process who made it a joy to work on every day. I mean, we put a lot of love into a movie that you wouldn't necessarily look at firsthand, a movie with serial killings and, you know, lots of bad, bad people. In fact, I don't know that there are really any fully, purely good people. I mean, you don't got Batman, but even he's got, you know,

some checkered stuff in his history and his methods. Yeah. And for those fans who haven't seen part one or part two, I mean, this is a great opportunity to get the full movie and to watch it. I mean, altogether, the runtime must be about, is it close to three hours? I will tell you because I happen to have my copy right here. It says it is 168 minutes. That's a little less than three hours. I mean, that sounds right. That sounds right for this story. Yeah. Well, that's also keep in mind that there's additional stuff in this release that wasn't included in the individual two movie releases so i don't know how much time that ends up taking in terms of those 168 minutes and how things edited together

and what have you but you know there's there's additional stuff in here and i think i saw that and it is more kind of like an that makes it kind of a little bit more of an extended version of what you would typically say like a director's cut or whatever. This one here, just the combination, they needed to maybe add a few things in to also kind of bridge and then maybe extend some scenes. I'll tell you what I think the biggest thing, I mean, I don't, I can't really speak to it in great detail, but I think the biggest thing is the rating for part one of Long Halloween was PG-13. The rating for part two was R. We made some changes to part one to make sure that we could release, you know, as PG-13.

And I think those things, you know, we're no longer sort of encumbered by that. I think you're right because it says in the marketing that it's you know more mature content so there you go that's exactly right and i think that's what people want you know i think that i mean from this story you know you you don't want us to tone it down or pull it back so this gives i think us a chance to to really show the movie the way that we conceived of it you know the of the story i should, you know, it was conceived as two different movies and produced as two different movies. But we always had an eye to how it would work as a single release.

And that's what this is. Well, I'm a big fan of the movie, big fan of your work over the years when we've had a chance to work on other projects together, too. And then when I saw you were part of this, I was like, Oh, that's fantastic. And I want to thank you again for coming on the program today to talk about it because, uh, your stories are a lot of fun to hear and it's just good to see you again. It's been a little while. I'm so glad you invited me. Thank you so much. Like this is, this is great. One thing Tim and I didn't talk about was the fantastic extra on the release, the 30 minute documentary featurette evolution of evil produced by a friend of

the podcast, Alex gray. This is a comprehensive look at the film and includes interviews with the original writer, Jeff Loeb, as well as producer Jim Craig and screenwriter Tim Sheridan. It's a terrific extra and just another reason to own this film. If you want to purchase or just find out more about the film, I'll have links in the podcast show notes and on our website at www.theextras.tv. So be sure and check those out. If this is the first episode of The Extras you've listened to and you enjoyed it,

please think about following the show at your favorite podcast provider. Some upcoming episodes that you might enjoy are our look back at Harry Potter 20 years later, the Blu-ray release of the classic horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Usual Suspects releasing on 4K, and Casablanca releasing on 4K. Those are all coming soon. And if you're a DC fan, be sure and check out some of our other DC podcasts in our archives. Also, follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at TheExtrasTV or Instagram at TheExtras.TV to stay up to date on our upcoming guests.

And for our long-term listeners, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review at iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed. The Extras is a production of Otaku Media, producers of podcasts, behind the scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.