Oct 8, 2010

Judas Contract Animated Film Unlikely

It’s time for New York Comic Con down in the Big Apple this weekend and naturally, there are a lot of panels on tap. One of those is the DC Universe Animated Films panel, which seems to have become a fixture on the large scale conventions. During this years panel, a fan brought up the scrapped “Teen Titans: Judas Contract” animated film, asking if it could possibly be revived.

Judging by the panelist reaction, we probably shouldn’t hold our breath.

One fan wants to see more Wolfman/Perez Titans, specifically Nightwing vs. Deathstroke. No real word from Timm or Jelenic other than “next.”

What was the initial reasoning for the cancellation of the Teen Titans: Judas Contract? Could it be revived?

Miereanu: “It’s never coming back.”

Timm: Home Video did market testing, said they didn’t think it was a safe enough bet to get their money back. When that decision came down, he didn’t really mind it — he thought they did a good job adapting it for the Teen Titans animated series. The script also needed “one more pass,” even though they were rushing it to production.

Timm: “It’s probably not going to happen.”

We already knew it was more or less canceled by now – Bruce Timm confirmed it a while back, but even so after a couple years of silence it was just a matter of putting two and two together – but this confirms the reasons why. Sadly, it makes sense.

Judas Contract would have been the third film released, which would have put it late into 2008. The series ended at the beginning of 2006 and the shows DTV movie, “Trouble in Tokyo”, apparently tanked on DVD. By the time they had considered it, the online fan communities centered around the show – whom I suspect they had also hoped to get the attention of with the film – had more or less moved on and it’s likely that only a fraction of what was left even cared. Other than that, you had the big fans of the comic, who were growing disillusioned at the time. “Not a safe enough bet” was probably being nice about it.

This is unfortunate, as I personally do not agree with Timm that the animated series adapted the story well at all. I had hoped this would be a more faithful telling of the story and looked forward to it. However, it’s probably for the best. They were looking to adapt the comic storyline in general and there was a fair amount of buildup to the Judas Contract story in particular that would have to have been cut. One of the things that probably wouldn’t have received proper time is Terra’s time on the team as a double agent, something the animated series glossed over as well.

It’s not the preferred outcome, but it’s better to know it’s dead for sure than to keep hope for a lost cause.

Source: http://www.newsarama.com/comics/nycc2010-dcu-animation-panel-101008.html