Backstage
- Stan Berkowitz Interview
Screenwriter Stan Berkowitz successfully
adapts another classic DC Comics graphic
novel to film with Superman/Batman:
Public Enemies
Justice
League: The New Frontier writer
brings Jeph Loeb comic to life in
all-new DC Universe Animated Original
PG-13 Movie for distribution Sept. 29
Screenwriter Stan Berkowitz guides
another classic DC Comics graphic novel
to animated glory with the September 29
Warner Home Video release of
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.
Berkowitz brought Darwyn Cooke’s
landmark Justice League: The New
Frontier from pages to screen in
2008, and this year he’s converted the
words of Jeph Loeb into a summer
popcorn-style blockbuster with the
crafting of the script for
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.
Warner Premiere, DC Comics and Warner
Bros. Animation will present the all-new
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
in a Blu-Ray™ Hi-Def edition, a special
edition 2-disc DVD, and a single disc
DVD. Warner Home Video will distribute
the action-packed movie, which will also
be available OnDemand and Pay-Per-View
as well as available for download on
Sept. 29.
In Superman/Batman:
Public Enemies, United States
President Lex Luthor uses the oncoming
trajectory of a Kryptonite asteroid to
frame Superman and declare a $1 billion
bounty on the heads of the Man of Steel
and his “partner in crime,” Batman.
Heroes and villains alike launch a
relentless pursuit of Superman and
Batman, who must unite – and recruit
help – to stave off the action-packed
onslaught, stop the asteroid, and
uncover Luthor’s devious plot to take
command of far more than North America.
Berkowitz has been actively writing
for 30 years, focusing his efforts on
animated properties for the past dozen
years. His animated credits range from
Superman: The Animated Series and
Batman: The Animated Series to
Justice League, The Batman
and Legion of Super Heroes, with
stops on shows like Static Shock,
Batman Beyond and Spider-Man
along the way. Prior to moving into the
animated realm, Berkowitz garnered
credits writing episodes of T.J.
Hooker and the latter-day versions
of Dragnet and Adam 12.
Berkowitz pushed the keyboard aside
to discuss the differences between his
film and Loeb’s initial take on the
tale, the importance of great voice
actors and a fine director, reaching
into the DC vault for his childhood
memories, the little things Alan Burnett
does to make a big impact, and the ideal
writing environment. Read on … Stan
Berkowitz is speaking.
QUESTION: Why was this story
right for you?
STAN BERKOWITZ:
I love the political aspect of it. In
the comic book that Jeph Loeb wrote, it
was assumed that everyone knew the
backstory to how Luthor got elected
President. But we needed the movie to
show an audience, who might not be
familiar with the comics, exactly what
would have to happen for Luthor to be
elected. I sort of envisioned Luthor
ascending to the Presidency somewhere
around 2012. I didn't quite predict the
catastrophe we'd be seeing in 2008. But
I figured that something bad would
happen, and then Democrats would be
elected in 2008, they wouldn’t be able
to solve the problem and, in 2012, a
tough, Ross Perot-style third party bid
would be the one who'd be elected.
It was kind of fun for me to
envision the political atmosphere that
would have to take place in order for
that to happen. And I also had a
wonderful time going with Jeph's
depiction of Luthor's descent into
insanity – always keeping in mind that
Clancy Brown would be enacting the
dialogue. It was just great to write
that.
QUESTION:
Superman/Batman: Pubic Enemies
follows Justice League: The New
Frontier as your second DC Universe
film adaptation of a classic DC Comics
graphic novel/com series. Are there
specific challenges to adapting a
well-known story?
STAN
BERKOWITZ: Each adaptation is
different, and presents different
challenges. In New Frontier, the
challenge was compressing all the
material into a coherent 75-minute
story. In Public Enemies, the
challenge was making the thematic
concerns concrete because the comic
author had the luxury of a narrator to
talk about the themes. And when we did
the screenplay, we had to show the
themes in action, having things happen
to illustrate those themes.
For
Public Enemies, there was also
the issue of credibility. We were
concerned that if a person who vaguely
knows Superman and Batman grabs this off
the shelf and sees Lex Luthor as
President, he might think, “hey, what's
going on here?” It might just put them
off, or make them think this was an
alternate world story. And that’s not
how it’s advertised. The other
credibility issue is that in the comic,
Luthor believes that the meteor is
coming to Earth because of Superman. As
a reader, I could not get past the fact
that the public buys Luthor's
explanation. I didn't believe an
audience watching this as an animated
production would buy Luthor's
explanation. So Alan (Burnett) and Bruce
(Timm) and I had to figure out an
alternate way for Luthor to frame
Superman. I think it worked very well.
QUESTION: What makes Lex
Luthor such a great villain?
STAN BERKOWITZ: I think anytime
you do a story, you have to ask
yourself, “What does the villain want?”
And the more complex the villain, the
more unusual a thing it is that he wants
– and, thus, the better the story will
be. In Luthor's case, he's like Salieri
to Superman's Mozart. Salieri would have
been the era's greatest composer had it
not been for Mozart, and Salieri knows
this. In the same vein, Luthor would
have been the leading light of our
generation except for Superman, and
there's nothing that he can do about it.
He's cast into the shadows, and that's
why he has that pathological hatred of
Superman.
QUESTION:
You've written Batman, and you've
written Superman. Now you’ve gotten to
write them together? What’s that dynamic
like to combine them and use that
chemistry to bring out the
personalities?
STAN
BERKOWITZ: Well, Batman and
Superman are opposites. Superman has
always been presented as the character
from the light, the daytime; Batman from
the nighttime. They have decidedly
different outlooks. Superman is the
ultimate kid from Kansas, who had a real
healthy upbringing. Batman is the
tormented orphan. In a way, Superman's
outlook is too sunny, and Batman’s is
too dark. The two of them work against
each other, trying to temper each
other's attitude.
Superman wants
to cheer up Batman to a certain extent,
and Batman wants to make Superman aware
that there is a darker world under what
Superman normally sees. It’s fun to
create banter between them. It was also
fun to adapt the banter that was in the
graphic novel, and we used a lot of it.
Jeph’s words were so good, we just
pulled dialogue directly from the pages
of the novel.
QUESTION:
Are you thinking of the cast’s voices
when you're writing and, if so, does
that help you write?
STAN
BERKOWITZ: I’m definitely
thinking of the actors' voices. Not to
denigrate Superman and Batman, but this
is Luthor's story. Luthor has more
dialogue than either Batman or Superman.
And frankly, I actually gave him even
more dialogue in those long speeches
because I was hoping Clancy Brown would
get the part, which he did. It’s so
pleasurable to watch – and hear – Clancy
do those Luthor lines, to watch Clancy's
descent into madness. It just brought me
back to the days when I got into this
medium in the first place. Suddenly, I
was just a 13-year-old with a movie
camera having fun with my friends and
doing these little movies. It had that
same visceral pleasure for me. Tim
(Daly) and Kevin (Conroy) are
sensational, too – those were also the
voices I had in mind while I was
writing. But this really is Clancy's
vehicle this time.
QUESTION:
Do you remember your first experience
with Superman and with Batman?
STAN BERKOWITZ: Easily. The
reason I remember this so well is that
when I started working on the show
Superboy in Florida, I was flown to
New York to meet Mike Carlin and Andy
Helfer at DC Comics. And we talked for
most of the day about the Superboy
show and then they just casually
mentioned, “Oh, by the way, we happen to
have a library here of all the comics
that DC has ever done.” Well, I got to
go see it. I went into that library and
found the very first two comics I'd ever
gotten. One of them was an issue of
Batman Detective Comics with a character
called Garth, and it involved a crossbow
being used to kill someone in an empty
room. The strings had been held back by
a cake of ice. And when the ice melted,
the crossbow let go and killed the guy
sitting in this deserted room. And the
other one was a SuperboyAdventure
Comics from August of '58, where
Superboy played all the positions on a
baseball team, thanks to his super
speed. And I remember I'd been sick in
the evening, and my father went out and
got the medicine for me, and also picked
up those two comic books. So it was kind
of cool, almost like reaching into a
time capsule, because I hadn't seen the
comics in over 30 years.
QUESTION: What is your strength
in this industry?
STAN
BERKOWITZ: I think part of my
strength is work habits. One of the
lessons I learned from my very first job
after film school was from Russ Meyer.
He said that from the time you wake up
'til the time you go to sleep, when
you’re on a show, the show owns you. You
don't own the show. There's no going
home at 6:00 at night. I have no idea if
there's any creativity involved (he
laughs), but I'm fairly certain that the
conscientiousness might explain some of
the longevity.
QUESTION:
Which presents more challenges: writing
an original Stan Berkowitz story or
adapting someone else's work?
STAN
BERKOWITZ: Doing an original
presents more challenges. The
adaptations are already there – the
studio knows they want to do it. In both
the case of New Frontier and
Public Enemies, I was approached by
the studio and asked if I wanted to
adapt them. Getting your own thing off
the ground is much, much more difficult
because even in our little world of
animation, the, pre-selling is an
important factor. And in both the case
of New Frontier and Public
Enemies, you had best-selling comics
that the fans already knew.
QUESTION: What's the perfect
environment for you to write in?
STAN BERKOWITZ: I like an
empty room, and that's all I really need
because there are absolutely no
distractions. No TV, no internet, just a
quiet room. It works for me. And it
helps me to work faster. From the day
they decided to do Public Enemies
until the day that the first draft of
the script was ready, it was exactly 60
days – which is really, really fast
for a feature-length project.
When I started writing in film school,
I'd have the TV on. Now I can't even
have music on. It just has to be dead
quiet with nobody around, nobody coming
to bother me. It’s all about
concentration. I can go for about two
hours before I need a distraction, then
I come back and go for another two
hours. If you plan your whole day
carefully, you can get in eight hours
of work and probably six to seven pages
of finished screenplay a day. There are
other writers who can do 10 or 12, but
they're probably burned out after about
a week or two.
QUESTION:
Beyond the narrative, are there any
other key differences between Jeph
Loeb's version and what we'll see in the
movie?
STAN BERKOWITZ:
I think the largest one involves what
Superman is framed for. We just didn’t
find it credible that the American
public would believe that Superman was
somehow drawing the meteor to Earth. We
thought we needed something that made a
little bit more sense.
My first
instinct was to have Superman accused of
an attempted murder on Metallo, and then
have this whole thing where ultimately
Metallo plays a key role by donating his
skeleton to be the nose cone of the
rocket. That didn’t work, and then Alan
(Burnett) suggested having Metallo
murdered and framing Superman for that.
Then Alan asked the next question and
answered it himself. “Why would anybody
believe that Superman had killed Metallo?”
And the answer that Alan gave for why
people would believe that Superman would
kill was that Superman's mind was
already being affected by the kryptonite
radiation coming from the approaching
meteor. Suddenly, the public is afraid
that a crazed Superman could just go off
the handle and kill anyone. I felt that
that was a very effective way of framing
Superman.
QUESTION:
What’s the influence of Alan Burnett on
the DC Universe films?
STAN
BERKOWITZ: Alan Burnett has
become an uber editor of all of the DCU
DVDs, and hopefully that remains his
role from now on. I started working for
Alan in 1996 and, in my opinion, you
could not ask for a better guy in that
position. He’s almost always one of the
few adults in the room. Inevitably,
he'll come up with something that seems
really small, but then changes the whole
story and makes it work. The radiation
effecting Superman’s mind is a perfect
example. I never would have thought of
that. But then here’s Alan sitting
quietly and then saying something that
fixes everything. That's what Alan does.
His criticisms are always constructive.
And you never, never see much ego
involved – at least I haven’t in the
past 12 years.
QUESTION:
What it's like for you to hear your
words take life in a recording session?
STAN BERKOWITZ: It’s fun,
but it makes you appreciate just how
good everyone else involved really is.
For starters, Andrea (Romano) makes it
look very, very simple, but I urge
anyone who thinks it's simple to
actually try to direct actors. It’s
hard. Very hard. They speak a different
language. We were working on an episode
of Justice League, and I happened
to get to the recording session early
and the only other person there already
was the lead villain. We started
chatting and, of course, the
conversation turned to “How did you see
this guy?” So I tell him my concept of
the character. I swear to God, it took
Andrea an hour of recording time to undo
the damage I'd done because I spoke to
him from the wrong perspective. An actor
wants to know the internal emotional
aspect of how the character feels, and I
was describing the character from the
outside, as how you would see him.
I’ve been blessed in that Andrea is
one of the few dialogue directors I’ve
worked with since 1996. When you hear an
actor – who’s either bad or who’s badly
directed – doing your dialogue, you
start thinking, “Oh my God, I'm a
terrible writer.” And then you hear your
words being directed by good director,
working with good actors, and you say,
“Hey, I'm good. I can write dialogue.”
That's the pleasure of being in a
recording session for one of your
scripts.
For more information,
images and updates, please visit the
film’s official website at
www.SupermanBatmanDVD.com.
Suggested captions for attached images:
Stan Berkowitz.jpg Stan Berkowitz
wrote the script for Superman/Batman:
Public Enemies, the next DC Universe
animated original movie, which is set
for distribution September 29, 2009 by
Warner Home Video. (Photo courtesy of
Gary Miereanu)
Lex_14.jpg
U.S. President Lex Luthor claims an
oncoming kryptonite meteor has driven
Superman mad, leading the Man of Steel
to commit murder in Superman/Batman:
Public Enemies. The DC Universe
animated original movie will be
distributed September 29, 2009 by Warner
Home Video.
B_02.jpg Bruce
Wayne runs calculations in the Batcave,
trying to stop an oncoming kryptonite
meteor in the next DC Universe animated
original movie, Superman/Batman:
Public Enemies. Warner Home Video
will distribute the film on September
29, 2009.
Silver Banshee.jpg
Silver Banshee is one of the dozens of
super villains who try to capture the
Man of Steel and the Dark Knight in
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies,
the next DC Universe animated original
movie, which is set for distribution
September 29, 2009 by Warner Home Video.
S_27.jpg Superman is forced into
one battle after another as both super
heroes and super villains alike seek to
capture the Man of Steel in
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. The
DC Universe animated original movie will
be distributed September 29, 2009 by
Warner Home Video.
Trademark
information for the images: SUPERMAN
© Warner Bros. Ent Inc. BATMAN © Warner
Bros. Ent Inc. "SUPERMAN" and “BATMAN”
and all related characters and elements
are trademarks of and © DC Comics. ©
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All
Rights Reserved. [ Back to Backstage ]
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