MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2007
SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY: DUANE CAPIZZI
SAN DIEG0 -- Duane Capizzi's certainly up for challenges.
An animation veteran whose career includes such comics-to-animation properties as Savage Dragon, Men in Black and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Capizzi has taken become a mainstay at Warner Bros. Animation with some daunting assignments.
Sometimes, they work -- The Batman series he helped develop and produced is heading into its fifth season. Sometimes, they don't -- a late-minute assignment on Superman: Brainiac Attacks couldn't save the film from critical bashing.
His second Superman assignment figures to be better received than his first. He's the writer of Superman Doomsday, which will be relased on DVD on Tuesday.
Capizzi recently sat down with a group of reporters before a screen of Superman Doomsday at Comic-Con International.
Below is an edited transcription of the interview.
Question: Is it true you had never written Superman before until recently?
Capizzi: Before Brainiac Attacks, I hadn't. Nor was I expecting to. It was something that came down very suddenly -- and much to my chargin. When I start project, I like to prepare. It's TV, TV moves fast and more times than not, there isn't enough time to do as much development as you would like. And you just find a way to throw it all together.
And I think with The Batman series -- and I had never written for Batman at that time, either -- I had a couple of months and had a basic concept for the series, Batman: Year Three, that had already been decided upon before I came on board. There was some fleshing out to to, but it was a case of a bible, pilot and a couple of months time. But it was doable.
With Brainiac Attacks, it was very suddenly. I was just preparing to go on vacation, actually. But I had to do a lot of cramming to get up to speed and get my feet we in this universe.
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So I was more up to speed on this. I think the bigger challenge was just initially the agenda was more adult tone, PG-13, it's for comic-book fans but at the same time ... Every product has its own challenges and this one was the fine line that we wanted to appeal to comic-book fans, Superman fans, but at the same we want it to appeal to a mass audience as a standalone blockbuster movie.
And then it was, "What's the property?" It was decided we were going to adapt "Death of Superman" and then it was like, how do we appoach this monumental task? How much do we put in? Are we going to be true to the letter? Or go with the spirit? I think those were the kinds of decisions Bruce (Timm, director) and I had to kind of figure out.
Question: How much pressure was this being an adaptation of one of the most famous comics in the last 50-75 years?
Capizzi: I honestly have to say the pressure was so much greater on Brainiac Attacks. A., because of the time. B., I wasn't quite up to speed. And, C., it was pretty much me. They were pretty much like run with this and make it work and you have "X" amount of time.
Honestly, this time, because I was working with Bruce Timm -- Mr. S:TAS and B:TAS -- it was like he was the guiding light and I knew I was in good hands. And I knew he wouldn't let me steer the project wrong. So I was actually very comfortable with this one.
And, I have to say, doing an adaptation is a lot easier than starting out with a blank page. It's nice to already have the sculpting clay there and even though I had read the books years ago when they were first serialized, you come to it with fresh eyes. You have a certain idea of what it is, your memory and original emotional responses to reading the material. And then -- how long has it been, 15 years? -- so you're reading it anew and start looking at it with fresh eyes. It's like, "Hey, I like that" or "Ooh, that doesn't work to much for me." And you're sort of navigating the material and sort of picking and choosing and obviously trying to make it all work within a self-contained, 78-minute movie.
Question: So there won't be time for Superman to return with a mullett.
Capizzi: I wouldn't call it a mullett, but there were certain things where Bruce was like, "You know what, you've got to have the black suit. You've got to have the long hair." I was actually proud of the fact that -- and it's easy to save with revisionism and the benefit of hindsight -- there were things in there that were kind of shaky logicially that Bruce and I really came up with some really terrific, logical explanations for. We were kind of able to go in and tweak things and make things make a little bit more sense. I think there are things that are really going to pop when you see it.
I keep on saying "Bruce and I" and "Bruce and I." Bruce was very involved in the story process. Both he and I spent a lot of time together -- too much time togther. A lot of raised voices, a lot of debate, a lot of hashing things out. It was a lot of fun.
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Question: That's the first time you've worked with him?
Capizzi: The first time I've worked with him. My history with Bruce is that we've known each other for many years. Bruce and I were neighbors at DIC when he was working on Beanie and Cecil and I was working on Alf.
And I remember I was there really late one Friday night, it was like midnight on a Friday night. I heard a voice in the next room, and it was Bruce talking to his girlfriend, who would become his wife. I was like, "There's somebody else, here?" There we were in our little cubbyholes.
So I've known him for a long time. And never worked with him. What I keep referring to is the unenviable task of having to follow in the Batman footsteps after B:TAS. You talk about the pressure of doing a project, that was one where I was like, "What do you do?" I knew there would be a dark albatross around my neck, this dark shadow always hovering over me. Hopefully, our series is sort of a different beast, as it was intended to be and needed to be.
So, yeah, first time working together. What can I say? He knows his stuff. He knows it so well, he has really great instincts. If I pitched something out, he would be like, "This would be more satisfying." And back and forth. So by the time I went to script, we had it right down to certain shots that we were both visualizing together, where the camera needs to be this way looking up, because that's the effect we want. It made the script writing a lot easier.
Question: How faithful is the movie and were you influenced by Bryan Singer's movie?
Capizzi: Typically, when you do something like this, as Bruce did with B:TAS and we did the The Batman, you tend to pull from a lot of different place. So there was certainly that.
We were really exciting about reading Grant Morrison's and Frank Quitely's All Star Superman. That was fresh and on the stands and was quite intersting to us. And there was Lex Luthor: Man of Steel was another. So were pulling from a lot of differnt places.
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Question: Were you worried about making changes?
Capizzi: We were asked to, because they wanted the movie to stand alone, to actual separate it from S:TAS as much as possible. Bruce didn't just take S:TAS designs. They wanted to be more edgier -- I hate that word.
Question: Is it possible you'll be working with Bruce again? In other words, what's on your plate?
Capizzi: I do have something on my plate right now. It's another DC Universe movie. My understanding is Bruce is overseeing all of them, so there you go.
Question: Can you elaborate on it?
Capizzi: I am two days away from turning in my first draft. It's probably a little early yet. It's one of the top seven. It is a pretty iconic character.
Question: Do you like playing with iconic characters?
Capizzi: There's so much baggage that comes with the real biggies, Batman and Superman. I think, after that, it's sort of like developing a muscle and it's like now I'm on ready to take this on. I think the next tier for me has been a lot more fun so far in a way. With Superman and Batman, it's been done so much, where do you turn? Where you turn is you try to find one little corner of it that hasn't been dealt with or hasn't been dealt with thoroughly or interestingly enough and try to riff off of that. I liken it to jazz or improvisation where you're taking themes and sor of embellishing them.
Copyright © 2007, The Comics Continuum