Kite Man: Hell Yeah!’s Matt Oberg and Dean Lorey Preview DC’s Wild Spinoff

Over the past few years, the Harley Quinn animated series has undeniably become a surprise hit, even earning its own spinoff series. Debuting exclusively on Max later this week, Kite Man: Hell Yeah! follows Kite Man (Matt Oberg) and Golden Glider (Stephanie Hsu) as they take over Gotham’s seediest bar, Noonan’s, and deal with the good and bad sides of the city’s flashiest villains.

In anticipation of Kite Man: Hell Yeah!‘s debut, ComicBook spoke with Oberg and executive producer Dean Lorey about the series’ long trek to becoming a reality, getting the endorsement of DC’s Tom King and James Gunn, the possibility of Kite Man heading to live-action, and more!

ComicBook: How does it feel to have the series out into the world? It’s been in the works for a couple of years. I know there were times where fans wondered if the show is even happening. How does it feel to finally be at this moment?

Matt Oberg: I’m psyched. I’ve learned early on with shows, don’t go looking on Twitter and expecting to see universal praise. People are pretty opinionated on that platform, but I’m excited to share this. I know so many people have worked so hard to make this, myself included. So many people have worked so much harder than I have, and it’s really beautiful, I think. So, I’m excited for people to get a chance to see it.

Dean Lorey: Yeah, for Kite Man, it’s been a real journey for all of us. Because he started in Harley as sort of a one-off character, in the first season, in the Bar Mitzvah episode. And we wrote it for Matt. We love Matt so much and we love the character.

Oberg: I love me too.

Lorey: He just turned from this little humble thing, to a big character in the Harley Quinn series, and then an unlikely person to pick to do the first spinoff. And that was part of the fun for us, just seeing this character go from such a small thing to such a big thing.

Oberg: Yeah, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe that it’s real. It’s shocking.

Going off of that, the more recent comics have really helped reignite the love for Kite Man. Tom King recently tweeted that he saw the show and he loved it. Did you guys connect with him at all in the process of making the show, since he kind of helped reinvigorate the character in the comics?

Lorey: Not much. But he’s been incredibly supportive. The fact that he’s really into it and is happy with it certainly gave us a lot of confidence. We’re just thrilled that we didn’t disappoint him.

I adore Lisa Snart, so thank you so much for giving her the spotlight on this show. What was your approach to expanding her story, and what was it like working with Stephanie in making that happen?

Lorey: We loved working with Stephanie, and we really wanted to find a character that made sense with Kite Man. Because when Kite Man was with Ivy, you enjoyed them as a couple, but they weren’t ultimately for each other. We really wanted somebody here who felt like he could really hang with and really love. And Stephanie Hsu was just wonderful. I mean, she really helped us develop the character. We went back and forth. We did a lot of sessions with her, and we just loved her energy and we loved her optimism. She had an optimism that sort of matched Kite Man’s. And it was fun for us to have a really good, healthy relationship in the DC universe, even though it involves a lot of killing.

And Matt, what was it like for you to play that dynamic between Kite Man and Golden Glider?

Oberg: Coming off the relationship with Ivy, which was toxic, ultimately, to have someone who really loved him back was really a nice feeling to have. I felt like he had earned it. You get worried about somebody who’s on the rebound from one of those, but I think he’s going to be all right. It was always surprising to me when there’s just these small moments of real tenderness. It’s always a little uncomfortable to act those, and you’re just in a room with a microphone and it feels weird to do that, but I think it really makes the show, to have that heart somewhere in there. It was a lot of fun.

Speaking of heart, I wanted to ask about Lance Reddick, because obviously his performance is so much more poignant now. What was it like working with him on the season and letting him make Lex his own?

Lorey: I mean, he was wonderful. We all loved him. We loved working with him, and we loved his take on Lex. Giancarlo [Esposito] was terrific, and he played Lex a little more as a businessman and all of that, which we thought was great. But what Lance brought in was more gravity to him, maybe a little bit more depth. We just so warmed to his take. Obviously, it was a giant shock to us, as it was to everybody, when he passed. But he’d, luckily, completed recording most of his episodes, so we were glad that we at least had that that we could give people. But we really loved him.

What surprised you the most about the experience of developing this season and getting the show made?

Oberg: It was shocking that it existed in the first place. I think I’m still processing that all the layers of people who had to have this idea, say yes to this. That, somehow, it survived that gauntlet is nothing short of a miracle.

Lorey: Justin Halpern, Pat Schumacher and myself, when we made Harley, one of the things that we always tried to honor was — if something was really funny to us in the moment, and we loved it. Usually those things, you put it into a script, and a lot of times the offbeat stuff falls out over the course of many drafts and all that. We really made an effort to try to, if there was something we loved at the beginning, keep it in all the way to the end. That’s how we would end up with a lot of those little offbeat conversations and stuff like that, that normally wouldn’t make its way into the final version.

And it was that way with Kite Man too. We just kept hoping it was going to happen and come together. We kept not letting it fall by the wayside, and just keep pushing. Because for us, a lot of the fun of this was that he’s just such an unexpected character to get his own show. But that’s also something that James Gunn is great at. Guardians of the Galaxy, these were not characters that you expected to have their own movie series. So he’s really into that stuff. He was very supportive and we were so thrilled to be able to actually do it, that everybody said yes. It’s hard to get everybody to agree on anything.

James Gunn loves this universe, and was on Harley. I’m glad to hear that he was so supportive of this. Matt, I know James has talked about the possibility of characters playing their roles in both live action and animation. If you got the opportunity, would you be willing to play Kite Man in live action?

Oberg: How much? How much? “Make me an offer”, is what I would say. No, of course. Of course. I will be there. I’ll be a local hire. I’ll bring my own kite. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, I will be there.

Lorey: I’ll be there to get him water. Get him sunscreen if he needs it. Whatever he needs.

Oberg: I don’t need it. I’m fine. I’ll be sunburned, but there’s lots of coverage with that suit.

I love that. I totally expected your answer to just be, “Hell yeah.”

Oberg: Oh, that would’ve been better!

Kite Man: Hell Yeah! premieres exclusively on Max on Thursday, July 18th, with new episodes debuting on Thursdays.