During San Diego-Comic Con 2023, “Justice League: Warworld” producer Butch Lekic revealed that there was a plan to do an animated adaptation of “Kingdom Come,” but incoming DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran put a stop to that.
In an interview with Screen Rant, Lekic spoke about how the original plan was to follow up “Justice League: Warworld” with “Kingdom Come”.
“We originally talked about Kingdom Come after this, but changing regimes, we couldn’t go forward with anything like that. They might incorporate it in the future with the New World, but that was one that we talked about as an obvious possibility to continue. Not this continuity, but something more Justice League and larger. Again, it’s personal and individual stuff that I would like to do, and I like the one comic book or two comic book issue stories. I think adapting graphic novels, there’s too much in there. Whereas if you just take two of the miniseries stuff, you can make a better story.”
“Kingdom Come” was a critically acclaimed comic book miniseries, written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Alex Ross. Released in 1996, the story is set in an alternate future of the DC Universe where traditional superheroes have been replaced by a younger, more reckless generation, causing chaos and destruction. The narrative follows an aging and retired Superman, disillusioned by the world’s descent into chaos, who is compelled to return and restore hope.
That’s too bad. I imagine they scrapped it for eventual live action plans of some type, but I would have preferred a multi movie animated one. Oh well..
I’ve learned that I’m not allowed to criticize James Gunn and his decisions, because if I do that, someone (or multiple individuals) will verbally rip me to shreds online in the comments section. Thus, all I can do is “shake my head.” I’ll just sit back and watch how things will unfold………..Anyway, hopefully we’ll get an animated “Kingdom Come” film someday.
I too would have like to have seen the animated version as well, but I can appreciate the new regime’s desire to possibly do it as live action, so I guess we’ll have to see what the future brings, and my fellow contributors in this article don’t ever feel afraid to share your opinions because we always have to remember. Each person is entitled to their own and it’s OK if we disagree on some things that’s what makes the discourse fun.
Having a single universe might make sense to the the overlords of DC but the direction of animation and film being 2 distinct entities enables multiple different ways of storytelling and therefore expanding their potential audience with different stories, some may resonate and some may not.
Justice League Dark : Apokolips War would never be done in live action and that (to me) is the best movie from DC in years.
Agreed. Wish they kept animation as a separate entity as it has been for decades.
Agreed as well. Connecting them might sound good on paper to gunn, but I can’t imagine that it would be sustainable or even possible long term.
And I’d much rather an unconnected Kingdom Come story told over multiple animated films over creature commandoes.
Disappointing. Sounds like DC is going the Alex Kurtzman star trek route with all their plans and I don’t say that as a good thing.
It’s amazing how much they seem to complicate matters that shouldn’t be very complicated. Just mind boggling. smh