Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One story arc, which originally appeared in issues 404 to 407 of DC Comics’ Batman in 1987, is to be adapted as an animated movie by directors Lauren Montgomery and Sam Liu, who have a hefty CV of feature length animations for DC under the belts.
Published soon after Miller’s grim and dystopian Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which ushered in a darker age of superheroics, Year One rebooted the character for the modern age, with a tidier back story and a grounding of realism.
Voice actors confirmed include Buffy The Vampire Slayer‘s Eliza Dushku as Catwoman, The OC‘s Benjamin McKenzie as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Malcolm In The Middle‘s Bryan Cranston as James Gordon, and Battlestar Galactica‘s Katee Sackhoff as Detective Sarah Essen, while veteran actor Alex Rocco (The Godfather and two episodes of the Sixties Batman series, amongst other things) voices mobster Carmine Falcone.
“The source material is surprisingly cinematic; it’s a pretty straight forward literal retelling”, says executive producer Bruce Timm, who co-created Batman: The Animated Series in 1992 and has been heavily involved on DC animation since. “Mazzucchelli’s artwork is beautifully composed and we were able to refer to the comic for about 80 percent of the camera setups.”
Batman: Year One is expected to be released on DVD in the Autumn.
