WB’s Justice League: Warworld is a new iteration of the famed DC trio Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman as they embark on a journey where they get to meet new potential allies as well as enemies. The feature is part of DC’s animated Tomorrowverse.
The voice cast includes Jensen Ackels, Stana Katic, Darren Criss, Matt Bomer, Brett Dalton, Ike Amadi, Troy Baker, and John DiMaggio, with direction from Jeff Wamester and a script created by Jeremy Adams, Ernie Altbacker, and Josie Campbell.
Justice League: Warworld’s Butch Lukic Discussed Why The Animated Film Became Rated-R
During an interview with Screen Rant, executive producer Butch Lukic talked about Justice League: Warworld and how its rating came to be.
“It’s mostly rated R because of the violence. There’s a lot of bloodletting, sword-fighting, and gunfights. The violence, and then the R rating’s coming from that. Originally, honestly, it’s a PG 13.”
He remarked that both Warner Bros and DC required animated projects to fall under PG-13 only, but after working on it, they realized it should have been rated R.
“Originally, we were planning PG-13 because DC made a mandate for the last few years of only PG-13. We thought we had a PG-13. But once we got into it…”
The creative team worked on Warworld and made it quite vicious and violent. Somehow, this helped them tell the story they wanted to show to the audience because they now had more freedom without the risk of compromising.
“Once we got into the aftereffects, we added more blood, assuming we’d get a milder rated MP, [but] he turned out to be a nutcase and put it as an R.”
At the San Diego Comic-Con 2023, Lukic revealed that not only the animated film almost did not receive an R-rating, but it almost never existed. He claimed they initially had no plans to develop it via MovieWeb:
“Initially, we weren’t thinking Warworld. The story we pitched to them originally wasn’t Warworld, but then we found out there were many elements of Warworld to continue with where we are going with the rest of the story.”
Justice League: Warworld was released on July 25, 2023 and has an approval rating of 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.
WB’s Justice League: Warworld Producer Reveals Major Influences For The Animated Feature
During his interview via Animation Magazine, Lukic revealed his inspiration for Justice League: Warworld.
“I wanted to do a Western, and I also want to do a barbarian sword and sorcery scene, and then I also want to do a black-and-white sci-fi ‘50s thing — basically based on Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But generally, I was going more for the feel and look of the ’60s or ’70s type of spaghetti Western.”
He explained that the filming process felt more like working on a television series rather than a film, which explains the exploration of new genres while staying true to the spirit of the characters.
Justice League: Warworld is available to stream via Prime Video, Max, and Apple TV.
