DC has released the trailer for Batman: Death In The Family, and animated adaptation of the now-iconic Batman storyline from the 1980s. In a big twist, DC is taking a page from Netflix’s Black Mirror by offering fans an interactive movie experience! Batman: Death In The Family will essentially let viewers relive the acclaimed Batman: Under the Red Hood animated movie from 2010, only this time DC fans will have the ability to control how that story plays out. As you can see in the trailer above, this is going to be an interesting little experiment with Batman lore and the DC Animated movie experience – and we can’t wait to try it out!
This interactive film isn’t just a viewing novelty – it’s also a clever callback to the 1980s interactive event, where DC Comics let fans determine the fate of Jason Todd/Robin through phone-in voting that was advertised in the comics. The big reaction from fans led to “Death In The Family,” a storyline where Todd is brutally beaten to death and blown up by The Joker. Jason Todd’s death would be a dark milestone shaping Batman’s world until the dead Robin was resurrected as the
violent vigilante “Red Hood”. Red Hood is now a major character in the DC Comics Universe.
Here are the full details on Batman: Death In the Family, via Warner Bros. Animation:
“Five fascinating tales from the iconic DC canon, including the first interactive film presentation in Warner Bros. Home Entertainment history, come to animated life in DC Showcase – Batman: Death in the Family. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC, the anthology of 2019-2020 animated shorts arrives from WBHE on Blu-ray and Digital in Fall 2020.
Anchoring the compilation of shorts is Batman: Death in the Family, WBHE’s first-ever venture into interactive storytelling that allows fans to choose where the story goes through an innovative navigation guided by the viewer’s remote control. Central to the extended-length short is an adaptation of “Batman: A Death in the Family,” the 1988 landmark DC event where fans voted by telephone to determine the story’s ending. The interactive Blu-ray presentation offers many different ways for viewers to tell the Batman: Death in the Family story, with numerous twists and turns in the middle, and several possible endings. The choices along the way put greater weight on the viewers’ decisions and result in even stronger stories.
Produced, directed and written by Brandon Vietti, Batman: Death in the Family offers an inventive take on the long-demanded story. In the new animated presentation, the infamous murder of Batman prot?g? Jason Todd will be undone, and the destinies of Batman, Robin and The Joker will play out in shocking new ways as viewers make multiple choices to control the story. And while Batman: Under the Red Hood provides a baseline, the story also branches in new directions and features several characters previously unseen in the original film.
Bruce Greenwood (The Resident, Star Trek, iRobot), Vincent Martella (Phineas and Ferb) and John DiMaggio (Futurama, Adventure Time) reprise their Batman: Under The Red Hood roles of Batman, young Jason Todd and The Joker, respectively. Other featured voices are Zehra Fazal (Young Justice) as Talia al Ghul and Gary Cole (Veep) as Two-Face and James Gordon.”
Batman: Death In The Family arrives in Fall 2020.
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.
