Back Talk is a semi-regular news feature that looks at the latest trends, celebrity quotes, and media propaganda and attempts to read between the lines, cut through all the PC BS and present the facts as straight forward as possible.

Not too far back, I posted an article on Bruce Timm and an interesting chat he had with Big Shiny Robot . The immediate, jump-out quote to emerge from that interview was Timm stating his reasons for why WB and his own production crew will probably never make an animated Green Arrow or Aquaman movie. Timm wasn't necessarily singling out these characters, it was more of a response to the question of why Batman dominates the WB animated movie landscape. Here's the quote:



Big Shiny Robot: When you’re looking for new projects that are within the DC Universe, is it difficult to deal with that wealth of riches that you have to choose from in the source material, or do you have a mental list of things that you say, “I’d really like to go back and do this if they gave me the opportunity.”



TIMM: It is kind of a broad question, and hopefully I can answer it in a way without insulting tons and tons of people, but…I wish there was more really strong source material like All-Star Superman or Batman: Year One for us to adapt into movies. There really aren’t. There’s a lot of good comics over the entire course of history, but in terms of finding a really well-known comic like Batman: Year One or Dark Knight Returns that’s not only a great comic but also famous and has its own name-recognition value, there aren’t that many of them out there. Is there a Dark Knight equivalent for Aquaman or for Green Arrow? No, there really isn’t. So there may be good stories out there, but they’re not on that same level. It definitely makes it easier when there’s a story like Batman: Year One or Dark Knight or All-Star Superman or The New Frontier. Something that’s really that strong and you can read the comic and go, “OK, I can totally see how that would work as an animated film.” There aren’t really that many properties out there that are like that.





A lot of you CBMers were not buying Timm's explanation. Many of you pointed to Green Arrow: Year One as a great Emerald Archer-centric bit of DC material that would translate will into animated form. Others also made the case for Green Arrow: The Long Bow Hunters and Green Arrow: Quiver . Even more CBMers campaigned for a Flash solo film, even though there was no mention of the character in the article. I think that alone is a testament to that character's popularity. As for Aquaman, besides the Aquaman: The Death of a Prince storyline, many people used the animated Wonder Woman as an example of simply making an original animated feature and not using a specific graphic novel for inspiration.



So just why exactly is WB pushing out Batman and Superman animated features one after another? Let's look inside the numbers for the answers.





Now before everyone points to the sale totals for Batman: Year One, keep in mind that a significant portion of the sales for that movie were on Blu-Ray. The next lowest units sold totals were for movies featuring Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Superman. Meanwhile, at the other end, the top selling movies were those featuring Batman and the Justice League. Based on those hard facts, it's easy to see why Warner Bro.'s upcoming animated film slate is Justice League: Doom, Superman Versus The Elite and The Dark Knight Returns. It's not the fact that there's a lack of great source material to draw from, it's the fact that they tried the "non-Batman" experiment before and that just didn't work out. It's really a shame too, both Wonder Woman and Emerald Knights were fantastic films that should've achieved better numbers. Heck, even Superman doesn't pull the numbers he should without partnering up with Batman. Which is why I say the best chance of getting a Green Arrow or Aquaman centered movie is to partner them up with the Batman. Anyone know of any great Aquaman/Batman or Green Arrow/Batman graphic novels?