Creature Commandos team talk challenges of setting DCU through animation

Creature Commandos is the first project in James Gunn’s upcoming DC Universe, with it kicking off a whole new cinematic world of DC’s most iconic superheroes and supervillains. Although these Creature Commandos The team has been around for a while, not nearly as popular as some of DC’s other flagship heroes, with many wondering what the new DCU is kicking with a Creature Commandos series rather than featuring Batman, Superman or Wonder Woman. Creature Commandos is not released until December 2024But it’s one of the most anticipated Max Originals of the year, with it introducing many to a whole new team of DC characters.

Based on the comic book team of the same name, Creature Commandos Meet Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller of Task Force B, a new suicide squad made up exclusively of non-human monsters. The animated Creature Commandos Series has an all-star cast, with Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., Sean Gunn as Weasel and GI Robot, Alan Tudyk as Dr. Phosphorous, Zoe Chao as Nina Marzusky, David Harbor as Eric Frankenstein, and Indira Varna as the bride. Along with Viola Davis’ Amander Waller, Steve Agee will also return Creature CommandosReprising his role as John Economos of peace maker.

Screen Rant was at SCAD Animation Fest 2024, The Savannah College of Art and Design’s annual celebration of the art of animation takes place in Atlanta, Georgia. While there, Warner Bros. Animation Supervising Producer Rick Morales and EVP of Special Programming Peter Girardi gave a presentation on the making of Creature CommandosFeaturing some exciting concept art and other behind-the-scenes materials from the upcoming series. before the panel, Screen Rant Interviewed Rick Morales and Peter Girardi on their work on Creature CommandosWith them hint at Easter eggs and the future of the DCU.

Starting the DCU with Creature Commandos is perfect for James Gunn’s DC Universe

“James loves the lesser-known underdog characters.”

Screen Rant: Why did you both feel like starting with a lesser-known team, the Creature Commandos, was the right way to introduce the new DC universe to audiences?

Peter Girardi: I worked with Peter Safran and James Gunn for a while, even before they came to run DC, and James loves the lesser-known underdog characters — think about the Guardians, right? Especially the more fantastic characters like the monsters and commandos. I also think it was a great way to onboard a little bit and get his kind of distinct POV flavor right out of the gate with animation. James had not done this kind of animation before. Clearly, in all his films, there is a lot of VFX, which is a different form of animation. But I think the kind of misfit team that pulls together, that has to learn how to become a family, nobody really does it better than him.

Rick Morales: I think he even said it was a little taste test or a little bite of the universe before Superman was the main course. You know what I mean?

Peter Girardi: And there are characters in the series that show up in the live action universe as well. The plan is really to have greater continuity between all the different kinds of mediums, which is great.

The difficulties of creating an animated project in a live-action universe

“It’s been a little bit of back and forth so that we can remind each other…”

Screen Rant: Since you had to plan for the show to also be continuous with live action projects during production, were there any restrictions with designing characters that had to work in live action spaces?

Rick Morales: We’ve seen some stuff. We saw some stuff they were working on.

Peter Girardi: And it’s also the other way, with the designs that [Rick Morales] Did for Rick Flag.

Rick Morales: Yeah, it’s been a little bit of back and forth so that we can remind each other if [Gunn] Has something going on. I remember my favorite moment was when we recorded Frank Grillo and did some ADR with him. He finally saw Rick Flag on that show and was like, ‘Oh my God, I love that hair. Can I take a picture of it, and when I’m back on set, I want to have him do it just like that.’ I was like, ‘This is awesome, man. Go for it.’

There is definitely a bit of back and forth there. James Gunn, he’s really involved, so he oversees that stuff. We show him designs, and we show him anatomy and all these things. So he knows when there is something, even if we are not aware. He’s like, ‘Oh no, no, no, can’t do that because that’s going to happen.’

Screen Rant: On that note, are there any specific times you can talk about where you were trying to pull off something that would be difficult to pull off in a live action project?

Peter Girardi: Yeah, I think a lot of the show is. Look, when we get these projects, a lot of times we’re like, ‘Okay, what can we bring to this that even with modern VFX wouldn’t be able to be executed.’ So there’s a lot of that in the show, really using animation and specifically, 2D animation. [Warner Bros. Animation] Really still primarily love 2D animation, hopefully 24 drawings a second, but there are things we can’t do, and we welcome that.

Rick Morales: Yeah, and it’s really cool to have someone of James Gunn’s stature supporting that as well. A traditional animated show that looks like this when used to make hundreds of millions of dollars.

Creature Commandos Return Characters and Deku Continuity

“Obviously, we knew Viola Davis was going to be Waller, so there was some continuity there.”

Screen Rant: Were there any challenges when it came to bringing back characters from projects where some aspects weren’t considered canon like the Suicide Squad Movies and peace maker? What’s going to determine who comes back who can’t be used from past films and projects?

Peter Girardi: Again, it’s all James. It is his universe. He’s architecting it as we go forward. But the first document I ever saw had Weasel in it, so it was like, ‘Oh, cool’. So directly it is in its continuity of the DCU. And I think that was even before we actually started building it.

But on my side, we work with a lot of people at Warner Brothers who maybe aren’t that familiar with some of the characters. James is as familiar with letters as we are, and we’re both f***ing nerds. So he really gets it, and we can have a real conversation with him that’s like, ‘Well, would we really do that because it’s not the power set.’ And then he’ll be like, ‘Well, actually it can.’ Then we’re like, ‘Okay, good point.’

Rick Morales: The best thing I can remember about it is that we were designing a bunch of – we can’t give too much away – but we were designing prisoners. And we just have a bunch of really obscure D-level characters, just to see if we can slip them in as Easter eggs. And we sent off the designs to James, and he knew who every one of them was. Immediately. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I know this guy, this guy, this guy. We should not use this.’ He knew them by name, which is impressive.

Peter Girardi: And that’s great. Because it levels everything up for us, because we live and breathe it. And some of the partners may not be so familiar. And not only that, it’s also the POV you have on the characters, and how you look at them and how you interpret them. His interpretations and his love of what he did, I think, are pretty close to ours.

Rick Morales: And I think to really answer your question, he wrote all the scripts. So what’s going to go on in the show is the answer to what’s going to be in the universe. So, for Belle Reve it was like, ‘Is this the version of The Suicide Squad?’ Of course, we knew Viola Davis was going to be Waller, so there was some continuity there. But there’s never really a big question about what fits in and what doesn’t because he wrote it. It’s his stuff.

How Creature Commando’s soundtrack compares to past James Gunn projects

The Creature Commando creatives tease that “the scripts have the needle drops…”

Screen Rant: Since this is a James Gunn project, one thing that has been common in all of his projects, esp Guardians of the Galaxy And The Suicide Squadis the heavy use of pre-existing music. Is this something that is carried over into Creature Commandos?

Peter Girardi: The music is a huge part of it, yes. It is not the same as Guardians. The first script I ever got with a Spotify playlist. So he knew what it was from the beginning, and it was the right choice. It’s a very interesting choice.

Rick Morales: It has an awesome soundtrack. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. As Peter said, I got a playlist soon after I got the scripts. He’s thinking about this stuff while he’s writing it. The scripts have the needle drops, and the song starts playing while this and that happens. And that’s awesome.

Screen Rant: So in GuardiansPeter Quill’s mother gave him all the songs. with The Suicide SquadIt was more of an era of music. with Creature CommandosIs there an overarching theme to the music? Can you talk about that?

Peter Girardi: No (laughter). But yeah, it’s an overarching theme and once you see it, you’re like, “Oh, that makes sense.”

Rick Morales: He doesn’t make arbitrary choices. I see a lot of movies today that try to do what he does, and it’s just like ‘let’s put in a clever song and do an action sequence’. That’s not what he does. His stuff is so much more considered, I think, and it all has to do with the story.

Peter Girardi: And that’s all for character, which I sometimes think, especially in genre animation or genre filmmaking, the characters are the first thing that gets lost. Like, ‘Well, why don’t we have 11 gasoline trucks crash through this orphanage?’ But this is not the case. This is really from the character.

Creature Commandos balance his character in a similar way to Guardians of the Galaxy

“… it’s very moving in the same way Guardians was.”

Screen Rant: Since there are a lot of characters, I’m sure it’s probably a challenge to find the balance of characters that will get the focus. Are there characters you expect to be bigger hits with audiences?

Peter Girardi: There’s a lot of humor in that at the same time, and there’s a lot of pathos. Because you get a look at who each of the characters are. And they are monsters on the outside, but they are not on the inside. And I think their journey, their story, you really feel for them. And once you come around, it’s very moving in the same way The Guardians was. You get Peter’s backstory, you get Gamora’s backstory. All of them are carrying baggage and trauma, which is where their motivations really come from. It’s all good stories, and it’s here, too.

Rick Morales: I think that’s what James does so well. He focuses on the character. I don’t think he would ever make a cast that was that big and then not develop into them. There is a reason for everyone to be there, and it all makes sense.

How the monsters of Creature Commando compare to the previous iterations of the characters

“We had a color thing for the bride where we had to change the color of a stripe or something like that.”

Screen Rant: Since a lot of these characters aren’t originally DC characters, such as Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein, how closely do these characters compare to their Universal monster counterparts versus trying to stand out from them? Was trying to create original versions of the characters a challenge?

Rick Morales: I think they are definitely referring to their DC comic book sources. But even with that, James Gunn has his own names that honor what was done with the characters in the books. But then it’s its own twist that makes this stuff fresh. We had a color thing for the bride where we had to change the color of a strip or something like that. It wasn’t a big deal because they weren’t characters at all.

Peter Girardi: They are DC and James’ versions of the characters.

Screen Rant: Do both of you have a favorite character from the Creature Commandos team?

Rick Morales: It’s hard to oversee the whole thing and work on everything. There are so many capital letters. Personally, I think the standout will probably be the bride, but I also think that everyone will love Gi Robot. I love GI Robot, so I’ll say GI

Peter Girardi: I think Frankenstein, to me, was the most unexpected. And David Harbor’s performance is unhinged, which is fantastic.

More about Creature Commandos (2024)

Creature Commandos, from executive producer and writer James Gunn, tracks a secret team of incarcerated monsters recruited for missions too dangerous for humans. When all else fails, they are your last, worst option.

Check out our others Creature Commandos Interview here:

Creature Commandos Coming to Max on December 5th.