Batman content typically lends itself to a dark tone and brooding atmosphere, but for those who crave something a little more family-friendly, the movie Merry Little Batman is checking off holiday wishlists.
The animated film, which is available to stream for free with Amazon Prime, offers a new take on an underrated Batman character: Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s son. The story follows Damian on his quest to save Christmas and get his utility belt back from thieving villains.
Taking the famously moody Batman lore and twisting it into a kid-centric Christmas tale can be a delicate task, one Merry little Batman Director Mike Roth was eager to undertake given his history with the hero: “Who isn’t a big Batman fan growing up?” he tells The Toy Insider. “I’ve been a Batman fan my whole life, all the iterations of Batman are special to me.”
Armed with this love and a background writing and directing for series like The Regular Show, Roth helped craft a tale that takes a father-son dynamic that’s typically portrayed as antagonistic, and flips it into a loving, relatable relationship. “I hope that [audiences] connect to the characters,” Roth says. “We wanted this world to feel real and authentic because we want the stakes to feel real.”
One uphill battle was painting Bruce Wayne, a billionaire superhero, into a relatable light for viewers. “Myself, the writers … we all put a lot of our own dad-isms into the character,” he says. “Giving a personality and a connection to his son that’s get-able and relatable was very important to us.”
And then, of course, Christmas comes in. To join into the kid-approved Christmas canon takes a certain style and tone, one Roth thinks benefits from traditional cartoon animation.
“It’s a very illustrative quality we brought into it. And we wanted that because we wanted the story very much driven by Christmas and by Christmas themes, so we wanted each frame to almost look like a picture book, like a Christmas card or a Christmas book you might read on Christmas Eve.”
The film, which came out Dec. 8, has been largely met with positive reviews and has already spawned a spin-off. The upcoming show, Bat-Family, will be within the same universe as Merry Little Batman, featuring 22-minute episodes of the family sitcom action-adventure.
So while Merry Little Batman plays on repeat for little Batman fans who are finally getting a kid-friendly fix (and for parents who have joined the ranks of Batman fandom), Roth says there is still plenty to look forward to: “We’re gonna build the world out, see more villains … We’re also adding some fun and interesting people to the household. So we’re going to expand Wayne Manor a little bit.”
