DC Comics character Catwoman had her own feature, albeit a widely panned one, in 2004 with Halle Berry and Sharon Stone.
Outside of that though, the character has had a long life from the 1960s “Batman” series to various animated incarnations, to Michelle Pfeiffer’s unforgettable turn in 1992’s “Batman Returns,” Anne Hathaway’s version in 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises” and Zoe Kravitz’s take in 2022’s “The Batman”.
Turns out though a failed Catwoman prequel standalone project for HBO Max is what led to the upcoming animated “Dynamic Duo” film being produced by Swaybox Studios.
That film is focused on two versions of Robin, Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, with the studio’s signature style of blending puppetry, CGI and live-action elements. The reveal of a scrapped “Catwoman” film was made all the way back in January but wasn’t really picked up at the time.
Then, this week, outlet DC Film News indicated some pictures featured on Swaybox Studio’s website that were thought to have been behind-the-scenes pics from “Dynamic Duo” could actually belong to the canceled “Catwoman” movie.
They posted a portion from a now removed interview at Biz New Orleans in which Swaybox’s Arthur Mitnz said: “We were greenlit to make a project for HBO Max, a feature film based on Catwoman as a kid” but, three months into development, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav cancelled a swath of streaming projects: “He canceled 42 projects, including ours”.
Matt Reeves, director of “The Batman,” saw the footage from the “Catwoman” film that had been done so far and liked it so much he decided to put a sizzle reel of Swaybox’s work and showed it to Zaslav.
Zaslav was reportedly impressed enough to dub it “incredible,” and reportedly told the company to proceed but with a caveat: the project needed to tell a “larger story.” That led to the Dick Grayson and Jason Todd project which will “depict how the friendship between Grayson and Todd as youths becomes tested by their diverging ideas for what their future should be.”
The “Dynamic Duo” film is now in production but isn’t expected to debut for a few years.
