Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment are all set to release the sequel to the 2014 movie "Batman vs. Robin" in 2016 titled "Batman: Bad Blood."
The movie will see the return of Robin and Nightwing apart from new members of the Bat-family who will unite to protect Gotham City after the Dark Knight is apparently dead.
Comic Book Resources reported from a press conference at New York Comic Con where director Jay Oliva, producer James Tucker and character designer Phil Bourassa talked about the upcoming chapter in Batman animated universe.
Explaining how the movie picks up immediately following the events of its prequel, "Batman vs. Robin," Olivia said, "Robin is still in the monastery, to kind of learn to cope with his feelings, and Batman is doing his thing, kicking ass and taking names throughout Gotham."
"But what happens is, he runs into an altercation and supposedly dies. The rest of the Bat-family gets together to investigate what happened."
He also explained about the new villain in Gotham – the Heretic, who has a group of super-villains under his command including Hellhound, the Electrocutioner and the Calculator.
"So you get our Bat-family running into the Heretic, and as the story goes, you get to find out what happened to Batman," he said.
Though Batman has died in a number of mainstream and alternate stories in comic books, Olivia said that "Bad Blood" is different from all of them and is a completely new story.
"I know James Tucker really wanted to do a Bat-family story, and in order to really focus on them, you have to get rid of Batman in some way," he explained. "We found a good storyline to get him onto the sidelines so we can focus on Nightwing, Damian, Batwoman, Batwing."
When asked whether there will be any references or similarities with the live action movies such as the upcoming "Batman v. Superman", Olivia said he is not worried about it.
Explaining that the animation and live action departments have been granted the freedom to follow their own ideas, he said: "The nice thing about DC is, we are pretty much left to our own devices. The film guys do their thing, the TV guys do their thing, we are left to do our own thing. We don't have executives from the features telling us we can't do this because we are planning on using these characters."
"Batman vs. Robin" did well both commercially and critically and it is expected that "Batman: Bad Blood" will get a similar response.
