Warner Bros. Animation continues to glean beloved characters from DC’s expansive library for their DC Showcase line of animated shorts, this time opting to elevate Constantine, Kamandi, The Losers, and Blue Beetle in their 2021-2022 compilation release.
While Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth!, The Losers and Blue Beetle have previously appeared as enhanced content on past DC Universe Movies, the extended-length Constantine – The House of Mystery makes its debut as the anchor for this shorts compilation. The quartet are produced by Rick Morales (Mortal Kombat Legends franchise), Jim Krieg and Sam Register.
Ahead of the DC Showcase’s release, STARBURST caught up with Justice League Dark: Apokolips War and Injustice director Matt Peters to speak about his work on two of the shorts: the first is The House of Mystery, which sees Matt Ryan reprise his live-action and animated role as the Hellblazer himself.
In this all-new extended short that takes place after the events of Apokolips War, John Constantine wakes up in the eerie House of Mystery with no recollection of how he got there. Fortunately, Zatanna and his friends are all there; unfortunately, they have a bad habit of turning into demons and ripping him to shreds in a hellish Groundhog Day arrangement.
The second is Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth! About the last civilised teenage boy on a post-apocalyptic Earth ruled by talking animals. In this short, Kamandi and his friends are kidnapped by a gorilla cult dedicated to finding the reincarnation of their god, The Mighty One. The cult puts Kamandi’s team through a series of deadly tests to find it any of them know the secret of The Mighty One.
Were you excited to return to the Apokolips storyline?
Matt Peters: It was great to get the opportunity to showcase all these different characters, and particularly when the opportunity rose to deal with Constantine more closely, it was kind of a no-brainer just to follow up on Apokolips War and see the kind of stuff we could add. This was like an epilogue of sorts.
Were you aware that you’d get that chance when you were still in production for Apokolips War, or did it come later?
Matt Peters: I’m pretty sure it came later. Because we thought we had a nice little finish there, and we felt pretty satisfied with it. But clearly people saw the opportunity to explore and put a little epilogue in there – and why wouldn’t we do it! It was a great opportunity.
And would you now say that’s the definitive end to that shared universe, or is there the possibility of a feature sequel?
Matt Peters: I think James Tucker has reached the end of what he wanted to do. He was really involved with all the films, and I think that he saw this as the end. But who knows, I never underestimate that guy! He’s always coming up with new ideas and always finds something brilliant.
In all fairness, House of Mystery does leave a door open for a potential sequel.
Matt Peters: I mean, I love those characters, so I know I’d love to work on it.
Both Apokolips War and Injustice are very expansive projects, so what most excited you about zeroing in on a single character?
Matt Peters: Well with Apokolips, which I co-directed with Christina Sotta, we basically divided the movie down the middle, based on the characters that we love so much. She was a huge fan of Raven and I was a huge fan of Superman, so we could have a divide in the story structure based on our characters. With that, I didn’t really get a chance to work with Constantine’s character as much as I would have liked to. So, when somebody came to me asking if I wanted to go back and revisit Constantine, that was perfect.
And when it came to Kamandi, who is relatively unknown, how do you approach that differently to an established character like Constantine?
Matt Peters: Kamandi was more of a design challenge. And I think that Rick [Morales] really wanted to make sure that the short had the look and feel of a Jack Kirby comic from 1970. It was something that he worked really closely on with the designers, and really hammered out that style. It just blew my mind. That was the inspiration for me to try and capture as best we could the sensibilities of reading a comic from 1970. With House of Mystery, it was really putting a closing chapter on James Tucker’s universe. It was completely different doing Kamandi and it was so much fun to work on that film.
And from a directorial standpoint, how do you go about implementing those style identities?
Matt Peters: Working at Warner Bros, we’re always shifting styles and doing different things. It’s fun to find aspects that we can really play with so, reflecting back, it was fun to gear-shift from doing the James Tucker universe to a 70s comic style. They’re so different and each have their own strengths and challenges.
That’s one of the great things about Showcases, there’s lots of space for experimentation.
Matt Peters: Definitely, Showcases are tonnes of fun. I hope that the fans love them as much as we do because for us, it’s an opportunity to stretch out and do something different but put on a smaller scale so that we can jump in and back out without having to commit.
Any plans to jump back in with Kamandi?
Matt Peters: I think that if the fans want it, then to let people know. I think Rick wanted to keep the short open-ended because he knew that it was a really fun project, and he knew that it had a lot of potential. I think that everyone working at Warner’s wants to see these things to off, so we take any opportunity to see how fans will react to new projects. If there’s enough positive feedback, then it might get a greenlight to get stuck back into it!
How do you see all four shorts fitting together in this new compilation?
Matt Peters: There’s something very fun about the fact that they sample different styles, and use different places, different comic book textures. I think that’s the unifying element. What unites them is the variety that you get; each one is going to have its own signature style, and each one is going to be unique. That’s what fits them together.
And lastly, what are you working on at the moment?
Matt Peters: I’m not really sure. I just always keep my ear to the ground and see what Rick or James are working on!
DC Showcase Animated Shorts 2021-22 releases to Blu-Ray on May 2nd, Digital Download on May 3rd.
Check out our interview with The Losers screenwriter Tim Sheridan here, and our interview with Blue Beetle and The Losers director Milo Neuman here.
