Batman Goes Lovecraft for His Next Animated Movie

Over the decades, animation featuring Batman has taken the Dark Knight down some interesting avenues. Beyond seeing him at best and most green, we’ve seen him get out of his relative comfort zone by singing or becoming a ninja. For his next animated venture, he’ll be winding back the clock all the way back to the 1920s.

Revealed earlier in the week, Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham will see an alternate version of the character (as voiced by David Giuntoli, returning from 2020’s Batman: Soul of the Dragon) in the Gotham of that time period attempt to push back an ancient evil that he accidentally awoke in the first place. The arrival of that being, known as the Lurker on the Threshold, results in a crop of supernatural beings making their presence known in Gotham, such as Ra’s al Ghul (Navid Negahban) and Jason Blood (plus Blood’s demonic alter ego Etrigan, both voiced by Matthew Waterson). Other characters slated to appear include Dick Grayson (Jason Marsden), Oracle (Gideon Adlon), Grendon/Mr. Freeze (David Dastmalchian), and Kai Li Cain (Tati Gabrielle).

The film itself is based on the three-issue 2000 miniseries of the same name from Hellboy’s Mike Mignola, Richard Pace, Troy Nixey, and Dennis Janke. That comic, part of the alternate reality “Elseworlds” line of DC comics, was very much inspired by the works of author HP Lovecraft and featured Lovecraft versions of different DC and Batman characters, so expect the film to follow similar suit. It’s been a minute since we’ve seen an “Elseworlds” comic get adapted to film—Superman: Red Son was back in 2020, and the last one to star Batman was Gotham by Gaslight in 2018. WB Animation puts out DC animated films at a reliable clip, so hopefully this one finds (and lands with) its intended audience.

Expect Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham to release in spring 2023.

[via The Hollywood Reporter]

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