Interview w/Craig Kyle on Animated Marvel films and more!

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http://dvd.ign.com/articles/724/724253p1.html

 

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Interview continued...

http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=2345

(C) Marvel Comics
ASTONISHING X-MEN: X-23 - INNOCENCE LOST

Movies/Comics

Exclusive: CRAIG KYLE REVEALS THE FUTURE OF MARVEL'S ANIMATED FILMS - PART 3

The writer also discusses his favorite creation X-23 and how he thinks POWER PACK is cool and ripe for re-interpretation

By ANTHONY C. FERRANTE, Editor in Chief
Published 9/3/2007

Creating Marvel’s Direct-To-DVD animated films is a passion for Craig Kyle, Senior Vice President of Creative Development Animation for Marvel Studios, who has found great success with DOCTOR STRANGE: THE SORCERER SUPREME and is currently working on a slate of several more titles based on both new, re-interpreted and old Marvel characters.
In an exclusive interview with iF, Kyle explains the power of hand-drawn animation to these films, how proud he is of his baby girl character X-23 and of course revealing his passion for POWER PACK in Part 3 of this 3-part story.
iF Magazine: Any consideration of doing a whole CG animated movie?
CRAIG KYLE: I’m old school, I will always prefer traditional over CG. Although you have films like FINDING NEMO that break the heart and entertain in ways that I don’t think a traditional hand-drawn film could do. I think that’s one of the finest animated films to come out in two decades.
iF: In some ways, it’s better for Marvel's films to be hand-drawn anyway – it captures the comic book feel.
KYLE: What I love about Marvel and our characters -- everything springs forth from comic books. It’s guys and girls slaving over hand drawn work and the written page and it all lives and breaths on the paper. It’s great. It’s really, really good. And that’s why people kick our ass when we make something. "Why was this comic so great, and your movie so crappy?" Or "why did your TV series suck, but I love these twelve issues?"

When comics are done well, the reader is the one who completes that journey. You get to hear those voices in your head, you get to hear the sound effects and get to feel so much and fill in so many of the gaps and do the inbetweening from moment to moment. And we’re never going to be able to nail that. We’ll get close and people will tell us that. We’re never going to hear the Wolverine you hear. We’ll never hear the scream when Gwen Stacy fell to her death. We’re never going to be able to capture those moments as you envision them because they’re in your own imagination and there, they’re perfect. And that’s what we’re always chasing – that imagination, the love, the passion they’ve instilled in these still books. It’s a ***** of a job, and that’s why I’m here, because I love this stuff. That’s what I fell in love with.
iF: Was DOCTOR STRANGE a hard sell as a direct-to-DVD movie?
KYLE: It was definitely a hard sell. There are fans that loved STRANGE and I agree with them now, but it was [former Marvel President] Avi [Arad]. He was someone who expected us to do more than the softball projects like an AVENGERS or an IRON MAN. We needed to bring forth the characters that are owed their day, and STRANGE is one of them. He loved the story, loved the world and he beat the hell out of us to get it to a place where he felt it captured the magic of the character. To his credit, I’ve heard every one at Lionsgate and everybody here that it was the right decision, it was the right film to make. It’s our best film. I think a lot of us were nervous and were like "are you sure, we could do Hulk," but Avi was very adamant about it. I think that’s what’s exciting, when you have somebody like that, that’s so passionate and just believes in something, they can convince you that they’re right and he was. I know I have my characters like that. It’s on that person to convince us it’s a good decision.

http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=2330iF: It also expands the brand.

KYLE: They all believed this is how you widen the world of these characters, by giving them shots that people may not see at first glance. Find the right take, get to the core of the character, because they were all created for the right reason when they first hit the comics. It’s finding that perfect angle for it, that’s going to convince people like you. These guys kick ass. And you had asked me about THE NEXT AVENGERS, there’s a chance to keep that movie going in a [TV] series. It’s opened up a whole world of stories, I would love to see it continued in an animated series.
iF: What about a comic book series as well?
KYLE: And I think any time we can go back and inspire the comics, that’s where everything came from, if we can go back to inspire that place, we’ve really done a good job.
iF: And you’ve done that before when you created X-23 for the X-MEN: EVOLUTION animated TV series.
KYLE: That’s my little girl and I couldn’t be more proud of her. I know I had to clone Wolverine and make her a little girl and she’s taken off. I’m really proud of that, that means a lot to me. One of my best moments at Marvel, when I pitched that character Joe Quesada, and he said for fifteen years people have been trying to crack that idea and I did it in a page and a half. I mean, to have Joe Quesada, Editor in Chief, bad ass artist and all around awesome comic guy, be impressed, I was like, "I’m going to go home and get out of here." It was great. I couldn’t respect the comics any more, and again, they’re tough critics too. They look at our stuff, and expect us to deliver, and they tell us when we think we aren’t and they also tell us when they love this stuff. All the guys on the East Coast were really impressed with DOCTOR STRANGE, You can’t get better fan praise, than the guys who do the comics.
iF: What was tough to crack about X-23?
KYLE: When we were doing EVOLUTION, again, that’s an example to make sure we didn’t lose the young audience. And at the time, they were trying to find a way to push Wolverine and get him to connect more to the younger kids. The problem with the structure of EVOLUTION, most of our core heroes were teenagers. Wolverine was one of the old, grizzled guys. You couldn’t go out of Season 2 and then Season 3, all of a sudden, he’s a kid. So I labored over that -- "how do I make him younger?" And what I came down to is that he’s perfect. Too many great guys have worked with him. How do you better what the other greats have done with the character, so you don’t -- you copy it.

[In creating X-23], I took a look at Wolverine. Every time he went right, I made a left. Instead of a guy who is older than we know, I made a girl who is very young. Instead of a man who has no memory of his past, you have someone who is shackled to the murders she’s committed. Unlike a guy who had a life before it and lost it, I made her a girl whose never known anything but it. From the very beginning of her life, she has been put through this program and known nothing outside of it. And what you get is a mirror of Wolverine. He’s great that way, he’s great the other way. Unfortunately, when she came out, he got his memories back, so it killed some of the counterpoints to her, because if she had all this baggage, and he didn’t, then he didn’t know what was taken from him. If you had known all the screwed up things you’ve done, could you have become and X-Men and a hero? She’s going to answer that question. Unfortunately, she knows the face of everyone she has ever killed. Can you grow into a human being, now that you’ve been a weapon for 16 years and that’s her journey. She’s Pinocchio for Marvel Comics, she’s a samurai sword trying to become a real little girl and can she? And it's that journey that will hopefully take decades to tell. I’m real proud of her.
iF: What other characters would you love to see spun off into a direct-to-DVD movie at some point ?
KYLE: X-23 – I’d make it. I’m always attached to the X-universe and whether we’ll do movies that way or do some short films. There are some sagas I’d love to explore. I really like POWER PACK, as silly as it sounds, and as many fan’s eyes that rolled at the mention to it. I think they’re endearing and wonderful. It has that E.T. vibe to it where you run into your back yard and your life changes in an instant. I love empowering young characters, but not doing this crappy, crappy Saturday morning fare where they talk like sanitized bars of soap. That classic Spielberg capturing of life that was so fun and real. I prefer my kid movies to have just a touch of cursing so that it’s real, and I don’t mind hand guns. If we could do something like that and not lose that edgy childhood stuff.

Fans have been clamoring for RUNAWAYS and anything Brian Vaughan touches and I think there are wonderful stories to be told from those characters. What I’ve found, the characters I’m least interested in, turn out to be the best stories. Over the course of learning about them, reading more about them and trying to make them something I would love. You do fall in love with the characters. DOCTOR STRANGE is reflective of that. I was one of many who scratched my head when I heard about it, but by the time it was over, I couldn’t have been more proud and more in love with the character in the film. And that’s what [Marvel's President of Production] Kevin Feige said to me recently. "What I’ve found out, is the films you don’t want to do, are the one’s you do the best on." If there’s something I do down the road, and you personally didn’t like it, I might have loved it.
iF: So anything goes?
KYLE: I’ll take anything Marvel throws at me. It’s always great when you can get there first, and the live action guys come second, because you’re like, we already did that.

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[TwilightPro101]

"One of my best moments at Marvel, when I pitched that character Joe Quesada, and he said for fifteen years people have been trying to crack that idea and I did it in a page and a half. I mean, to have Joe Quesada, Editor in Chief, bad ass artist and all around awesome comic guy, be impressed, I was like, "I’m going to go home and get out of here." It was great."

Fifteen years to create X-23? Now, that's just plain sad, when just about any writer could have nailed that concept even then. Furtherproof that Quesada needs to go back to his own company and screw up other comics.

 

[JP]

Even when Wolverine isn't the one bringing in the viewers they still try to push him forward?

 

[Mr Jide]

You know, I'm not even a huge Dr Strange fan but I'll concede that it is by far the best of marvel's lionsgate movies, followed by UA, ironman then UA2.

 

[3dman27]

You know, I'm not even a huge Dr Strange fan but I'll concede that it is by far the best of marvel's lionsgate movies, followed by UA, ironman then UA2.

quoted for truth

 

[TwilightPro101]

I can't say I've enjoyed any of the animated movies thus far. Their either still 2D characters like the movies were in the 80s or the action is just plain bland.

 

[Spade]

The action could do with some refinement, but I'm starting to become tired of all the 3D films nowadays. There was a point where they were novel, but now everyone's tiring out the concept. Doctor Strange was a breath of fresh air that wasn't above 3D usage here and there.

 

[TwilightPro101]

I still haven't seen Doctor Strange yet. The trailer doesn't honestly catch my eye but I did enjoy the JMS take on the character. So I'll give it a shot at some point.

 

[Mr Jide]

Go catch Dr.Strange. It's easily the best of these S2DVD marvel movies.

 

[3dman27]

agreed