Batman: The Long Halloween animated movie is in the works at Warner Bros.
 

https://www.ign.com/articles/batman-...ovie-confirmed

Arguably the biggest news reveal is the panel?s confirmation of rumors that the acclaimed storyline Batman: The Long Halloween will receive a two-part animated feature film adaptation.

Part one of Batman: The Long Halloween will debut in the summer of 2021, with the second and final installment due out in the fall of next year.

A 13-issue comics story arc from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale that was first published in 1996, The Long Halloween chronicles a period early in Batman?s crime-fighting career that sees him on the trail of the Holiday Killer, a serial murderer who claims a new victim on each major holiday.

In the meantime, Batman remains busy breaking the power of organized crime in Gotham City through his alliance with the GCPD?s Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent.

Batman?s mission to catch Holiday also sees him cross paths with supervillains such as Joker, Catwoman, Scarecrow, Calendar Man, and Solomon Grundy.

There?s been speculation that The Long Halloween could be an inspiration for The Batman, director Matt Reeves? live-action reboot starring Robert Pattinson due out next year. Like The Long Halloween, The Batman is set during the early years of the Dark Knight?s career and will, as Reeves has said, be a Noir-style detective story told from Batman?s point-of-view.

https://i.imgur.com/qz2axHs.jpg



Voice Cast

A time-honored Batman tale is coming to the screen with the animated Batman: The Long Halloween, Part One. Supernatural's Jensen Ackles leads the cast as Batman/Bruce Wayne after previously voicing Jason Todd/Red Hood in 2010's Batman: Under the Red Hood.

Among the ensemble voice cast is Naya Rivera, the late Glee star who died in July. Rivera completed her voice work as Catwoman/Selina Kyle for The Long Halloween, which will be a two-part project, with Part One expected to bow this spring or summer.

Other stars include Josh Duhamel as Harvey Dent, Billy Burke as James Gordon, Titus Welliver as Carmine Falcone, David Dastmalchian as Calendar Man, Troy Baker as Joker, Amy Landecker as Barbara Gordon, Julie Nathanson as Gilda Dent, Jack Quaid as Alberto, Fred Tatasciore as Solomon Grundy and Alastair Duncan as Alfred. Other voice work was performed by Frances Callier, Greg Chun, Gary Leroi Gray and Jim Pirri.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...cast-exclusive

Don't they know it isn't the story that makes The Long Halloween special? Lordy.

Isn't that the case for all these animated movie adaptions?

I always thought it was... you talking about the artwork?

Okay, it did highlight Harvey Dent in way that maybe hadn't been done before?

But to me, it's always been the art that makes the book special. It's such a unique but iconic look for Batman. I found the actual plot of TLH to be sort of goofy and more of a propeller for the artwork.

That one Batman Annual as well as the Secret Origins Special did a ton to showcase Harvey Dent, many years before Long Halloween. I honestly think those are much better Dent stories.

I do agree that a lot of the series' strength is in the artwork. I do like the story, but I feel like unless you LOVE Tim Sale's artwork then the story itself is Just Okay. Personally, I can take or leave Sale's art. It's okay. Little bit too stylized for me. But I get why some people really like it.

I was never a fan of the whole twist ending, though. Felt a bit too out of left field, and also a huge retcon. There's never, ever been any indication whatsoever that Gilda Dent was some kind of Machiavellian serial killer, and even re-reading it knowing the ending I don't really see it fitting in very well. To me, it totally feels like they just wanted to do a swerve, make everyone think it was just Harvey and then pull the rug out from everyone, and it also feels like they started writing the story without any idea who the "real" killer was supposed to be and just made up the ending really late in the game. It doesn't feel in any way organic or "earned", at least not to me. It just feels like "Y'know who's kind of a non-character? Dent's wife. What if SHE'S the killer?!" And it's like yeah, okay, give a relatively minor character something to do... it still feels like an ass-pull.

That story also started the recurring trend of stories where the reader is led to believe Harvey is the Big Bad, only to end in a "shocking" reveal that it was somebody else. That's actually been more or less almost EVERY Dent/Two-Face story ever since, or at least it feels like it. And in most/all of those stories it really just should've been Two-Face. It's always just some "See?! You should've trusted me, Batman! Now I'm gonna go MORE crazy because you hurt my feelings!" thing. And the more they do it, the dumber it gets.

Anyways. I do like that screenshot above. If this is anything like most of the other recent animated "adaptations", it'll probably be lousy. But I might check it out anyway. I'm a little more lenient with stories I'm not in romantic love with to start.

I'm not ready to stop calling out the cheap animation. These adaptions have so much potential. I can't believe these are actually beginning to look worse.
Even compared to the the usual mediocrity, this looks like a step down.

Again, I think the fun of The Long Halloween owes much to the fact that you are seeing Gotham through the perspective of Tim Sale. The Long Halloween features so many villains in order to serve the art, more than the story, which is really just a loosely constructed mystery.

Just imagine this movie looking even as gorgeous as the anime-style "Gotham Knight" feature they put out around a decade ago.
If you could mesh that lush animation with Tim Sale's designs, you'd probably have something truly intoxicating to look at. Something you could recommend to your friends who enjoy the occasional, surreal, adult animated movie.
As is, even if the story is adult, the cheap animation deceives you into thinking this movie came with a Happy Meal.

Honestly I'm surprised it's its own thing and not somehow crammed into the New52 continuity. They finally ended that, didn't they?

Also Mr. Leo, given how they ruined Hush with the Riddler, I would not be surprised if they just went the cheap way out and ended this story with Dent being the killer and becoming Two-Face.

What is the release date for this? Fingers crossed it will not mirror Hush with a disappointing twist.

Goodness! The artstyle and animation look so uninspired. I'll watch this but I don't think this adaption will be interesting to watch.

It still surprises me that WB Animation still hasn't done a Knightfall adaption. If they do, hopefully they pick a good animation style for it. Otherwise, yikes!!

Based on what Leo said, if they just make it Two-Face in the end, the ending might be either better or worse, depending on how you look at it.

They are still going with that Archer-like art style.

Yep. I commend them for trying to create a movie universe, but most of those movies ranged from mediocre to bad. I pretty much only watched the DC movies outside that line for the last few years (Gotham by Gaslight, Batman 1966, Brave and the Bold/Scooby Doo, Lego Justice League, etc.)

I also hated that they exhausted Phil Bourassa as an artist. The designs and art style in season 3 of Young Justice took a hit because of it. They reused a lot of designs from the movies or even redesigned them as such like Wonder Woman or Deathstroke. So jarring.

I'd argue they ruined Riddler with Hush instead. ;)

That "Hush" movie is such a piece of sh*t.

You can say that again. I hope beyond all hope its not going to be Harvey Dent as Holiday after the co-conspirator, Riddler making Tommy Elliott a non-factor.

Part 1 isn't out yet and we have the trailer for Part 2

https://www.cbr.com/batman-the-long-...ebuts-box-art/

This states that Part 2 is $40? Is that parts 1 AND 2 together? Or is it just part 2 priced that high? I learned the hard way with the disappointing rewrite of Hush to watch it streaming before buying it.

$40 is about 40 more than I'm willing to spend to watch these.