Ultraman: Rising Director Talks Rebooting Ultraman, Manga Inspirations, and Trailer Easter Eggs

Ultraman: Rising will be making its debut with Netflix next month, and we got to talk with the director behind it all to celebrate the release of the newest trailer! Netflix has teamed up with Tsuburaya Productions and Industrial Light & Magic for a brand new take on the classic Tokusatsu hero, Ultraman. While fans might have seen the franchise reinvented in the last few years with the likes of Shin Ultraman, Netflix’s Ultraman anime series, comics and more, Ultraman: Rising is undoubtedly the biggest undertaking yet. It’s a reimagining of the Ultraman franchise that doesn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, but instead takes very special care of that baby. 

In anticipation of such a major undertaking, we got the chance to speak with Ultraman: Rising director Shannon Tindle all about the new movie! For this first part of our conversation (with more spoilery details being revealed following the film’s release next month), Tindle opened up about how his initial idea was in development for years before becoming an Ultraman movie, working with Tsuburaya Productions on introducing a new version of the Tokusatsu hero, the manga inspirations behind the film’s design, fun Easter Eggs hidden in the new trailer and more! 

Read on below for our chat with Ultraman: Rising director Shannon Tindle, and check out the new movie with Netflix when it premieres on June 14th around the world! 

Reactions to Ultraman: Rising So Far

NICK VALDEZ, COMICBOOK: Ultraman: Rising has a ton to celebrate! We’re talking right now to celebrate the release of the first full trailer, but it was also announced that it’s going to premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. And so I wanted to know from your perspective, after working on this for so long, how do you feel about the response to it so far?

SHANNON TINDLE: It’s been pretty incredible. I’m at that point now where I’ve seen it with lots of test audiences. A broad audience of people who, some know Ultraman, many don’t. The film is meant for a broad audience, for people who don’t. I want people to be able to come to it and not need any kind of education. They can just enjoy the film on a personal level. And so far, that’s been the case. We’ve gotten a really amazing response from people who’ve said, “I wouldn’t normally watch an Ultraman film,” so to watch this film and to be able to engage with it, because of the subject matter that we explore, the conflict between parents and children, has really been incredible. 

Then to be invited to Annecy, of course, this is my first time, I’ve never been, so that I’m going there to premiere the film, it is absolutely incredible, and I can’t say what just yet, but there’s going to be a surprise at Annecy that is related to ComicBook. So…I’m really excited to share a treat that we’ve put together.

On Becoming Ultraman

It’s so wild seeing Ultraman: Rising also, because everything fits so well, to remember that when it was announced, you had mentioned that this was a completely different kind of idea before even being adapted into an Ultraman story. So how did you end up connecting with Tsuburaya and turning it into what we see today?

TINDLE: So if I pitched you exactly what I pitched to all the people I pitched it to since 2001, you’d basically see the same story. It was always Ken Sato, there was always this conflict with his Dad. There was always this unwillingness to become this superhero, because he had a life that he was happy with. So those things never changed. But what happened is, I had the film in development at Sony. Mike Moon and Kristine Belson had brought me over to develop it. They really responded to the idea and were incredibly supportive throughout. We just got to a point where we wanted to go one direction, and the feeling at the larger studio was they wanted to go in a different direction, but I will always be grateful to Kristine for being gracious and saying, “You can take it elsewhere. I want to see this movie made. You can take it elsewhere.”

So then I brought it over to Netflix, and at that time I pitched it first to Greg Taylor and Jill Sanford. Then they loved it and they wanted me to come back, and I gave the script as it existed at that time to Melissa Cobb, who was running the division at that time. I thought I was coming into a smaller room, and I came in and there was this larger room of folks. I was introduced to another executive, who’d just gotten back from Tokyo, and chatting with the folks at Tsuburaya. He said, “Look, I know this is inspired by Ultraman. Would you consider making it an Ultraman story?” And my honest reaction was, nerd me is like, “Amazing.” Producer, writer, director me was like, “I know how fraught the character has been with rights and things,” and I said, “I want to make the movie that I wrote. I want to make a movie about this family, whether it’s Ultraman, whether it’s the character as he existed at that time, Gamma Man, that’s what I want to make. So if you guys support that, I’m more than happy to talk with Tsuburaya.”

Melissa said, “Well, would you be willing to fly to Japan for us?” I’m like, “Free trip to Japan? Absolutely, let’s go.” So I met with the chairman and CEO [Takayuki] Tsukagoshi-san, and with [Kei] Minamitani-san and [Masahiro] Onda-san, the group there that runs Tsuburaya. They have been incredible from day one. Absolutely incredible. Of course, there, there’s all this history that comes with Ultraman, since 1966, but they’ve been so open to the interpretations of the Science Team, of the main character.

I think part of that is just because it’s innate to the character. Every couple of years it’s a new story. So that’s why if there are any fans who get frustrated like, “Well, this doesn’t do this and it doesn’t do this,” I’m like, “Well, Ultraman is very different from Ultraseven.” Even the way that the powers manifest. Ultraman and Shin Hayata are merged. A human and an alien are merged. But in Ultraseven, the second series, it’s Dan Moroboshi who’s an alien in the form of a human. So I felt that there was that license there. And then once we spent time with them, and they fully supported the story that I wanted to tell, I said, “Well, let’s do this.” And so it’s not always the case, especially with a character big as Ultraman.

I don’t think people understand quite how huge Ultraman is, even just all over Asia. I was in Anhui in southern China years ago, and at the base, before we were going to hike to the top of Huangshan, which is this beautiful mountain, there were hundreds of wooden Ultraman dolls…Ultraman Taro and Ultraman Ace. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m in southern China and I’m seeing all of these Ultraman dolls.” So that’s how it came about, and it’s been an absolutely incredible relationship, and I hope it continues.

On Rebooting Ultraman

Yeah, Ultraman is no stranger to reboots! Tsuburaya, I think a few years ago had mentioned they wanted to expand the worldwide reach of their projects, like Ultraman. ‘Cause Gridman came back with two seasons of an anime in a full universe, Ultraman has a Netflix anime series, and now we’re at a full animated film. In this reboot and your undertaking of Ultraman, how hands-on was Tsuburaya in terms of allowing you to change the character and take bits and pieces of the lore? 

TINDLE: So they didn’t. We always kept them in the loop. We would spend a week or two at a time just going through things and understanding their perspective, and sharing with them my story. But in terms of Ken’s journey, there weren’t any flags raised or objections raised. There were questions asked about the Kaiju Defense Force because typically, the SSSP, the Science Team, or whether it’s the task force in Ultraseven, they’re the good guys. And I wanted to say, well, what happens if you take an organization like that that was meant to study and understand kaiju, because of somebody’s trauma that they’ve experienced, Dr. Onda’s trauma, and Dr. Onda by the way, is named after Onda-san, who is keeper of…He’s a lovely guy. He’s not a bad guy at all. He’s lovely. So I told him, I was like, “Is it okay if I named the bad guy after you?” But those were the things where they wanted us to be thoughtful in the approach.

Actually, one of the scenes I’m proudest of in the film…Tsubaraya had said, “Well, can there be somebody on the KDF that questions the motivations and questions the extremities?” So I won’t reveal too much because I don’t want to spoil the movie, but there’s the conversation between Dr. Onda and a subordinate, who questions him, and he gives him his answer. I think that gives a peek into, and it happens after we reveal what happened to Dr. Onda, and why he is the way that he is. That scene wouldn’t have existed if Tsuburaya hadn’t challenged me and said, “Could you find at least somebody in there who still holds true? Or at least questions, like, ‘This is a different motivation than we’ve had in the past. Is this right?’”

So that was the kind of positive engagement we had. And even if we didn’t agree in the beginning, we found a way to compromise and to understand one another, but for the most part, it was absolutely, I would say entirely, it was an incredible experience, because it’s okay to be challenged if everybody is in support of making a great movie. There were no egos involved. It was really just like, we’re challenging because the history. We know that this works. We know the fans are going to react a certain way. And I said, “My goal is just to make a great movie. That’s what I want to do. So as long as we keep that in mind and we’re all pushing toward that goal, then we’re going to be okay.”

Hidden Ultraman Easter Eggs

Yeah, ’cause, even as you mention that, I’m remembering that the KDF has the Science Patrol color scheme and stuff like that. There’s all these little things that are in there that I really appreciated.

TINDLE: There are tons of Easter eggs in there.

Yes! Like there is one shot. I’m trying not to go full into it, but there are some kaiju designs in here that I was like, “Oh, that one.” And even Gigantron- 

TINDLE: Well, I think because this is going to come out with the trailer, so I think we can, and the trailer has Neronga and Bemular in it. And at Comic Book Day, they released those trading cards with Neronga on it. So those are two of my favorites. I think Bemular is the first kaiju that Ultraman battles in the first series. So it’s why I wanted Bemular to be the first kaiju that you see in the movie. And Neronga’s just always been a favorite for me. And Gigantron was always an original, so she just was transported from my original script, for what at that time was called “Made In Japan,” to Ultraman. I didn’t feel any reason to change her, because every Ultra series introduces new kaiju. They’ll update and revise existing kaiju, but they also bring in new kaiju. So I thought, well, let’s carry that tradition on.

On Designing Ultraman: Rising’s Look

Well, that kind of ties into my next question here. How’d you come about finding the aesthetic for Ultraman: Rising? Because it’s a very distinct design. It brings in the Tokusatsu live action element to it, but then also you have the fluidity of the animation. And especially when it gets into the fights, you get impact frames and little flourishes there. Working with Industrial Light & Magic, this is their first animated superhero feature too, what was the process like in figuring out what Ultraman: Rising was going to look like?

TINDLE: So, because I had done some development work on it at Sony, and actually some of the folks who worked on it at Sony, Marcos Mateu, Sunmin Inn, those folks came over to work when it got set up at Netflix. But the aesthetic changed, and I felt empowered, and I give Chris and Phil and Peter and Bob Persichetti, and those guys, all the credit for pushing the boundaries of the Spider-Verse, because it gave us permission to be able to do something bold as well.

We wanted to explore manga. You speak of impact frames. We have that moment with the grand slam where we go all in with the look, and we just wanted to have little flares and flashes of those moments. But the overall aesthetic was working with our incredible art director, Sunmin Inn, and our production designer, Marcos Mateu. And Sunmin early on found this look where she was trying to replicate the covers of manga, even though the contents are usually black and white, inside the covers, it will be like these beautifully rendered Copic marker covers.

So how can we get that into the look? How can we get line work in there? How can we get the cross-hatching that you have in manga incorporated in there? So having already worked with Hayden Jones on Lost Ollie, and just have he and Steph Drury over there to become really close friends, and we thought, “Well, hey, what if my producer, Tom Knott was seeing the work come in from Ollie?” And he was like, “Man, it’s so incredible, I wonder if they would consider doing an animated film.” I said, “We can ask them.” And we lured them in and seduced them with the early artwork. And they were like, “Yeah, let’s figure this out.”

So then after that, it just becomes a process of evolution. I’ve worked in story, character design, art departments, and I want something to evolve, but I don’t like to dwell. I’m not a…I’ll call it the “I’ll-know-it-when-I-see-it director.” I kind of have an idea of what I want, or Sunmin would turn in these beautiful paintings, Marcos would turn in these beautiful backgrounds, and I’d be like, “That’s right. That’s not quite right. Let’s look at that.” And then they would work closely with Hayden and figure it out.

Then in regard to character design, working with our amazing character art director, Keiko, I said, “Let’s look at Leiji Matsumoto’s work. I love his elongated, elegant forms and let’s see if we can look at that.” And Ultraman, in the history of Ultraman, is an alien anyway. The original Ultraman was inspired by gray aliens, but it’s always a guy in a suit. So what can we do in animation to make him more slender and elegant and reflect a more alien physique? And then we had that overall aesthetic for the characters as well. For most of the characters. Not Ken’s Dad, Professor Sato. He’s a little different, but Ken’s hair is inspired by, I think, might be my favorite actor of all time, Toshiro Mifune. When you see that wet tasseled hair, dude is the sexiest man who’s ever existed. Then you have the primary samurai in Seven Samurai [Takashi] Shimura-san, Ken’s inspired by him. 

So Keiko and I worked back and forth on him because he’s got such, when you see him…he’s got that just, such a sympathetic face, and I wanted that in the design. Those designs, every frame tells a story, and how can you get the most impact? So working with Keiko to find those designs, it was just incredible. It’s been said before. Hire a great team and let them do their jobs. And that’s really what we had on this film is like, “I’m nothing without this team. I’m nothing…” The idea was elevated by each and every member who worked countless hours to make this look great. So all the credit to them.

Ultraman: Rising releases with Netflix on June 14th. Check back with ComicBook after the movie hits for the spoiler-filled Part 2 of our chat!