Bruce Timm Eyeing ‘Superman: Red Son’ for Next Movie

DC Animation legend Bruce Timm has his eye on a classic Superman tale.

Timm spoke to ComicBook.com and other reporters during a Q&A at the premiere of Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. He revealed that the Elseworlds story he’d most like to tackle next is Superman: Red Son.

Superman: Red Son is a fan-favorite Elseworlds comic. Mark Millar wrote the three-issue miniseries. Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett provided the art.

Red Son imagines what the DC Comics universe would look like if Kal-El’s rocket didn’t land in Kansas. What if it landed in the Soviet Union instead? This change sends ripple effects throughout the DC Universe.

Here’s the official synopsis for Superman: Red Son used on the collected edition of the series:

“Imagine a reality where the world’s most powerful super-being does not grow up in Smallville, Kansas – or even America, for that matter…

SUPERMAN: RED SON is a vivid tale of Cold War paranoia, that reveals how the ship carrying the infant who would later be known as Superman lands in the midst of the 1950s Soviet Union. Raised on a collective, the infant grows up and becomes a symbol to the Soviet people, and the world changes drastically from what we know – bringing Superman into conflict with Batman, Lex Luthor and many others.”

The story features several other reimagined version of DC Comics characters. Superman allows the Soviet Union to conquer the Amazons. Wonder Woman must then serve her conquerors. Batman is a guerrilla freedom fighter. Brainiac, Green Lantern, and Lex Luthor also make appearances.

Timm said that his desire becoming reality depends on how Gotham by Gaslight sells. If the Batman Elseworlds adaptation does well, it could inspire Warner Bros. to fund more stories about alternative versions of DC’s iconic characters.

That would be something of a return to form for the DC Universe Original Movies line. The films first focused on standalone stories like The New Frontier and Batman: Year One. More recently, the series launched its own animated shared universe based on DC’s New 52. The standalone movies have never gone away completely. Justice League: Gods and Monsters and Batman: The Killing Joke are recent examples. But the shared universe releases have outnumbered standalone releases two-to-one.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight releases January 23rd on digital. It releases February 6th on Blu-ray.