Can Jonathan Kent and Damian Wayne rescue their superhero fathers? Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons is Warner Bros. Animation first CG feature film and begins as 11-year-old Jonathan Kent discovers he has superpowers!
Soon the half-Kryptonian is thrusted into the complicated world of Super Heroes and Super-Villains – who are now under attack by a malevolent alien force known as Starro. It’s a race against time as Jonathan must join forces with assassin-turned-Boy-Wonder Damian Wayne to rescue their fathers (Superman & Batman) and save the planet by becoming the Super Sons they were destined to be!
Check out the trailer here…
Starring Jack Dylan Glazer (Shazam!) and Jack Griffo (The Thundermans) as Jonathan Kent and Damian Wayne respectively, the film is written by Jeremy Adams (Mortal Kombat Legends) and directed by Matt Peters (Justice League Dark: Apokolips War).
We sat down with Peters to geek out about Superman and find out why he’d love to do a Blue Beetle movie…
How would you describe Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons?
It’s basically a really fun and new exploration of Batman and Superman, seeing them as parents and finding out what their super sons are like.
It can be funny at times, it can be heartfelt, but most of the time, it’s just exciting and just a good superhero romp that should be just a load of fun to watch!
How did you first get involved with the movie?
Well, Rick [Morales, supervising producer] and Jeremy [Adams, writer] had been developing the script for a while – about four years before they finally pitched it. Then Rick and I worked together on some other projects and Rick knows me as a huge Superman fan and he was like ‘well, I bet Matt would get a kick out of it!’ The minute he asked, I don’t think he even got past the word ‘Superman’ when I said ‘I’m in!’ [haha].
What was it about Jeremy Adams’ script that stood out to you?
The thing that was really great about it was that Jeremy is not just a fan of comic book movies, he’s also just a fan of fun adventure and action films, and that really got peppered into the movie.
At times it feels like The Goonies, at times it feels like The Monster Squad. But then it also has elements of the Richard Donner Superman, which is really heartfelt and sincere. But then it’s also twisted in this horror aspect which goes right on the toes of The Thing. You got all these different kinds of genres, all within superheroes and all within sci-fi and all are getting blended together.
It’s just so exciting to sink your teeth in and have fun with that.
What can you tell us about Jonathan Kent/Superboy in Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons?
It’s really interesting because it’s [not] Superboy in the classic sense. It’s not Superboy like ‘Superman Superboy’ because that was somebody who came to earth and he already knew he had superpowers.
Here we have a kid who is basically just a normal kid and slowly he starts to make a discovery that he’s got superpowers.
So, on the one hand, we have Jonathan who is learning he is a superhero and is learning how to enter into the superhero world, and we have Damian who already exists in the superhero world but he’s going into what is essentially the normal world with friends and childhood friends and relationships.
How would you describe the dynamic between Jonathan and Damien?
Jonathan is definitely more heartfelt and more of a normal kid who’s just enamoured with the fact that he’s slowly discovering he’s got superpowers.
Damian’s got some damage. He was not exactly raised in the most normal environment. There’s a lot of hurt there and I think there’s a lot of growth that he needs to go through and that makes him a pretty interesting character in himself.
Jack Dylan Glazer and Jack Griffo play Jonathan and Damien – did you manage to get them in the recording booth together?
We didn’t get a chance to work with them together at one time. I think it was only at Comic Con that I got to actually sit down and talk to both of them. They’re both great! They’re incredibly entertaining people. It’s just so much fun.
It’s actually really funny that Jonathan (Jack [Dylan Grazer]), he’s a rambunctious and really hysterical and fun guy. [While] Damien (Jack [Griffo]) is much more quiet and gentle. So almost off camera, they seem to be the opposite! It’s almost like we should have cast them as each other’s character but each of them did such a great job. It was great to have them. We were lucky.
Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons is the first CG film from Warner Bros. Animation. How involved were you with the look of the movie?
The look of the movie was pretty much Rick. He was a big fan of the comic, and I knew he had some ideas in mind for how he wanted to do it. We had worked together before on some CG Lego films and so CG was not something new to him.
The idea of doing a 2D CG movie was something that I know he really wanted to sink his teeth into and he focused really hard on making sure those designs look great. He knew that was going to be an important part of what image the audience was going to see and what they’re going to relate to.
He worked with the design department to make sure that those designs looked great and honestly that’s really a testament to all the work that Rick did.
You’ve directed quite a few Warner Bros Animation movies now, from serious dramas to comedies – do you have a preference of genre?
I always have fun jumping from one genre to the other – it keeps me kind of fluid and loose! I really enjoy being able to play with the typical things that you find in each genre, but I don’t know if there’s necessarily a genre that I prefer. It’s more that I want the script to be really well done and working with Jeremy is great because you get something that you can really sink your teeth into.
The thing that I really enjoy is making sure that there’s something there that’s not so much the genre, but that the story is actually really well told.
Is there a superhero character that you haven’t worked with that you’d like to in the future?
Let’s see… I really liked a lot of the characters that Steve Ditko came up with, like The Creeper or Hawk and Dove are characters I’d really like to tackle at some point.
It breaks my heart that Rick was able to put together a Blue Beetle cartoon short that I thought was absolutely perfect. I really wished I could have got to work on that but sadly, it didn’t work in the schedule!
What would you like for audiences to take away from Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons?
Overall I obviously want them to have a good time! [Also] that it felt like they were watching something that got treated with respect. That they would see that we’re fans and that we try to treat these characters with that kind of respect.
But obviously, it would be mostly just having a lot of fun and then coming away with the idea that these characters are likeable and hopefully they want to see more of them because I know that we would love to do more stuff with it.
So if we end up hearing about that, if [fans] let Warner Bros know, we could see more Super Sons in the future…
Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons is available from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on DVD and Blu-ray on 17 October, and Digital Download on 18 October 2022.
