Warner Bros. has announced the cast for the animated home video adaptation of Frank Miller's classic four-issue mini-series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns from 1986, which will star someone very familiar to old-school sci-fi movie fans.
The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that RoboCop and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai star Peter Weller will voice the role of the older Batman/Bruce Wayne while Modern Family TV actress Ariel Winter will voice Robin/Carrie Kelley.
The Dark Knight Returns tells the story of a 55-year-old Bruce Wayne who comes out of retirement to fight crime once again as Batman, only to face opposition from the Gotham City Police Department and the United States government. The adaptation will be split up into two releases titled Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 and Part 2. The first part, released under a new DC Comics Premiere Movie brand, will arrive in the fall while Part 2 is slated for early 2013.
"Dark Knight Returns is the granddaddy of beloved comics properties that we’ve ever attempted (to adapt)," said Bruce Timm, executive producer of all of DC’s animated movies. "There is definitely the imperative to get it right." Timm described Peter Weller as having "the proper weight to his voice. He definitely brings all of the world-weariness of the character and inner core of optimist covered in a cynical shell."
Also announced for the cast are David Selby, who starred in the original Dark Shadows soap opera and Falcon Crest, Wade Williams from Prison Break as Two-Face/Harvey Dent, and Michael McKean as Dr. Wolper, the psychiatrist who arranges for the Joker's release from Arkham Asylum.
The director is Jay Oliva, who storyboarded Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman movie Man of Steel and directed sequences of Green Lantern: Emerald Knights. Bob Goodman, writer on Syfy’s Warehouse 13 and other DC animated projects, adapted Miller's mini-series.