Oct 14, 2013

Bruce Timm Celebrates Superman's 75th Anniversary with Short Film

This morning, Entertainment Weekly premiered a two-minute Superman short film by Bruce Timm and "Man of Steel" director Zack Snyder. See it here. In two compact minutes, the film documents the highlights and iconic moments of the DC superhero's career.

Tim told EW: [It was Zack Snyder's idea. We talked to him about making a short film for a show on Cartoon Network called DC Nation. He said, 'I'll think about it,' and he came up with the idea of basically doing the whole history of Superman in one minute. We said, 'Okay ...... He said, 'Phew. ' We started working on it and soon realized there was no way to do it in even one minute."

The choice of what was included and what was excluded would undoubtedly cause grumbling among fans, but Tim says it was the purview of his staff as curators of the piece. People will argue about it," he said. Why is that one in and this one not? ......" He said. We had a lot of meetings about it. What has to be here, what should be here, but it's not absolutely necessary ......" And.

Just as Guillermo del Toro's recent "Simpsons" title relied on his knowledge of classic horror and del Toro's own body of work, the appeal of Tim's short story derives from his assumed knowledge of the Superman mythos. It is a catalog of other people's ideas, lovingly crafted but without much merit as an animated film.

The short was produced by Warner Bros. Animation, but unfortunately no credit was given for the work. A high-resolution version of the film will be included on the Blu-ray release of "Man of Steel" next month.

(via @Paul_Dini)