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2007 Movie News Archives

September 10, 2007: Bruce Timm Talks “Superman: Doomsday”

During this year's San Diego Comic Con, Bruce Timm took part in a round-table interview with journalists, who asked him a series of questions about the up-coming direct-to-DVD animated movie "Superman: Doomsday". Here's an excerpt from that interview...

Question: It is hard to reimagine some of those characters, like going from a big, stocky guy in Lex Luthor?

Timm: He was the easiest one to reimagine because all the other characters are really concrete stereotypes. Not stereotypes, but you know that the minute you go out of Superman's character, it's obvious to everybody. You'd go, "Superman would never say that."

But with Luthor, we had a little bit more wiggle room with how we play him. Because he's been so wildly different throughout his entire career, going through the comics and the movies and the cartoons we've done. He's either the tycoon or the mad scientist or the renegade super-criminal or whatever.

Duane (Capizzi, screenwriter) and I were very influenced by Birthright, mostly visually. I was very struck by the way Leinil Yu drew him, very, very thin and very guant almost. I thought that was a really interesting look for him. The challenge was to take 40 pounds of flesh off him, but still keep him powerful.

Pesonality-wise, he's not as bombastic as our old Luthor. He's not as commanding. He's quieter. The word we always used to describe him was "reptilian." He's very kind of quietly sinister. It's really, really effective, I think. I love the new Luthor. I love the old Luthor, too.

Read the complete transcript of the Bruce Timm interview at ComicsContinuum.com.