Trivia / DC Animated Movie Universe

• Executive Meddling: How the universe began and ended.
  • As revealed on the commentary track for Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, the whole universe's existence was the result of an edict given to James Tucker as production was finishing up on Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, being told to do a universe using that as a jumping-off point.
  • In an interview for Justice League Dark: Apokolips War on DC Universe's DC Daily, that film's status as the Grand Finale was also an edict.
• Fake Nationality: Irish Jason O'Mara and Canadian-born Nathan Fillion play the American Batman and Hal Jordan after replacing American actors Kevin Conroy and Justin Kirk. In The Flashpoint Paradox, the Scottish Kevin McKidd plays Thomas Wayne, complete with the trademark gravelly Batman voice, while native Brit Cary Elwes sounding unrecognizable as the America, gravelly voiced Aquaman. Finally in Bad Blood, the Austrlaian Yvonne Strahovski plays Kate Kane.
• Role Reprise:
  • In Justice League: War: Zach Callison reprises his role from Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam as Billy Baston.
  • Son of Batman and Batman vs. Robin see David McCallum reprises his Batman: Gotham Knight role as Alfred, the latter also seeing Kevin Conroy reprise his "Perchance to Dream" and Batman: Arkham Asylum role as Thomas Wayne. Batman: Bad Blood and Batman: Hush see McCallum replaced by another reprise, James Garrett, who voiced Alfred in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
  • Justice League: Throne of Atlantis once again sees Nathan Fillion take over as Hal Jordan and Steve Blum reprise his Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox role as Lex Luthor, which he also reprised in Justice League vs. Teen Titans.
  • Justice League Dark features Matt Ryan and Jeremy Davies reprising their respective Constantine roles as the show's title character and Ritchie Simpson.
  • Teen Titans: The Judas Contract sees Crispin Freeman, Jason Spisak, and Masasa Moyo reprise their respective Young Justice (2010) roles as Speedy, Kid Flash, and Bumblebee.
  • Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay sees Christian Slater reprising his Justice League Action as Deadshot, Tara Strong once again voicing Harley Quinn, and C. Thomas Howell reprising his Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox as Professor Zoom. In the case of Howell, this is because the movie is a Stealth Sequel to Flashpoint and thus is the same Thawne, from the moment of his death and using his powers to keep himself alive.
  • The Death of Superman sees Max Mittelman reprising his Justice League Action role as Jimmy Olsen, Paul Eiding reprising his Superman vs. the Elite role as Jonathan Kent, and Jennifer Hale reprising her Legion of Super-Heroes role as Martha Kent. The follow-up, Reign of the Supermen, sees Tony Todd reprise his LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes specials role as Darkseid.
  • Batman: Hush, in addition to Garrett as Alfred, sees The Joker voiced by Jason Spisak, who he previously voiced in the LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes movies and Hynden Walch also voice Harley Quinn, much like how she did on The Batman. According to the commentary, it was actually inverted with Peyton List, Poison Ivy's third actress on Gotham, as she recorded for the film first, then was cast to replace Maggie Geha in the TV series.
  • Wonder Woman: Bloodlines sees Hippolyta voiced by Cree Summer, who voices her on DC Super Hero Girls.
  • Justice League Dark: Apokolips War sees King Shark voiced by John DiMaggio, who he first voiced in Batman: Assault on Arkham.
• Torch the Franchise and Run: Being a product made during the heyday of The New 52, the franchise was... contentious at best with most fans, who liked a few of the stories over others. And to the writers' credits, they did try to ease up on the Darker and Edgier aspects of the New 52 as the films went on, but DC ultimately realized the universe wasn't really all that popular, especially with the New 52 brand ceasing by 2016 and the movies getting mixed critical receptions and mediocre sales. Seeing no reason to continue the animated version further, DC ended this animated universe with Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, which ultimately ends with most of the heroes dead and Earth utterly decimated beyond repair. Sure the surviving heroes win and Darkseid is finally taken out for good. But by then there's barely anything left to save with rebuilding being virtually impossible. Most they can do is send Flash back in time to prevent this timeline from ever happening which will likely create a new one ala Flashpoint.
• What Could Have Been:
  • James Tucker revealed that an idea floated for a movie early on was an adaptation of Death of the Family with an idea for a stinger in Batman vs. Robin being the reveal that the Dollmaker had cut off the Joker's face like he did early in the New 52. This was rejected and when the Joker did appear in Hush, he had his face.
  • Similarly, James Tucker mentioned that there was originally a post credits scene idea for Teen Titans: The Judas Contract was for Blackfire scheming to go after Starfire that would've set up a third movie. He also planned for Kid Flash to debut in the third film, but when he was told to end the franchise with Apokolips War he had Wallace West appear as a small cameo.
• Word of God: In the commentary for Apokolips War, James Tucker confirms that while they weren't strict about the timeline they did try to keep Damian aging. He claims that he is at the minimum sixteen in Apokolips War, though he doesn't clarify whether that's before or after the Time Skip. Given that his appearance doesn't change after the time skip, it's likely that he was sixteen at the start and eighteen for the rest of the film.
• Writer Conflicts with Canon: James Tucker claimed years after the film's release that the Kid Flash depicted in Teen Titans: The Judas Contract was actually Barry Allen rather than Wally West, which doesn't mesh well with what the other movies in this continuity establish about Barry Allen's history, most notably how Justice League: War showed Barry to have initially believed that Batman wasn't real in spite of being on the same team as Robin in his youth.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: In the commentary for Apokolips War James Tucker explains that the DCAMU existing because of Executive Meddling caused this, since he wasn't told how many in-continuity movies he was supposed to make or given much rules besides using The Flashpoint Paradox as a jumping-off point. However he's actually grateful for this, as he felt the universe was able to grow more organically while he would have found it daunting to have to plan it all out, and acknowledges that he had no idea where this universe was going meaning that Apokolips War was a happy surprise, since he found there were many ideas from previous films he could bring together for the Grand Finale.

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