Kyle's latest project is Ultimate Avengers 2, a straight-to-DVD sequel that continues the expansion of Marvel's slate of TV and film adaptations of their most popular properties. Kyle recently caught up with IGN via telephone to talk about putting together the animated sequel; in addition to addressing the inevitable production woes and creative challenges, he talks at length about merging the comic and animated series, and offers a few tidbits about the next Marvel animated movies.
IGN DVD: When you started working on the sequel, what sort of things did you want to accomplish in terms of pushing the story forward?
Craig Kyle: With all of these two projects, even the next two films Iron Man and Doctor Strange, we're approaching these like a comic book series. You start with most often an origin story, and thankfully Mark Millar and Brian Hitch did a beautiful job writing that story for us that we adapted, and the first film was largely what you found in the book. Obviously there were adjustments made and we had to expand the story in some ways, but what we found very early in the process was we needed to answer the question why are the aliens here, how much of that actual story can we get across in that first film and have it feel satisfying while still leaving questions looming so that we can then tell the next chapter. And to answer that question of why and what the aliens are after became an issue very early on for us and what we were finding was Black Panther and Wakanda and the secrets of that nation really fit in perfectly with the story that we were telling. Once we had our story fleshed out for the first [film], there were just elements that were going to play right into the second, and we knew that pretty much by the end of the process.
IGN: In terms of translating this material to the screen, what were some of the things that you were sort of testing out when you were rendering that transition between the printed page and the moving image?
Kyle: Well, it's never easy. As much as people would love to think you can put comics in a shredder, tape them together, get your board, your animatic, and then just shoot, it's not the way. I wish it was, and we're going to keep trying to get as close to the actual panels and pages of every comic that we develop for these stories, but it always comes down to adapting the material. And we are you guys - we are fans; we don't sit in this chair because we wanted a job where we look at art all day or talk about heroes. We're just fan boys. You couldn't work in these jobs if you weren't passionate. I mean, half of the crew that we work with are at the Comic-Cons, they have the books, they've got the art and the action figures - I mean, we love this stuff. So what you do is you have situations like 'you've got to get that Giant Man-Cap fight in', because it was such a spectacular moment: you could hear Cap running up those stairs, jumping out that window and smacking Giant Man in the face when he deserved it. It was such a great scene, and for the longest time we tried to get it in there, and what we realized is that there's no way you could do that kind of a fight in the film because the problem is we have seventy-plus minutes to tell these stories, and in comics you're given thankfully much more time to resolve issues and to bring characters back into a good light. It just allows you to do all kinds of wonderful storytelling because of the time you have - and again, Ultimates is a wonderful example of that time being spent well. To have Hank hit his wife, there's no way you could get audiences rooting for him at the end of a film, and that then removes the chance to have that great resolution with Cap and Hank.
So what you have to do is [ask] what do we love about it if we're not looking at specific events. Well, we love that Hank's a hero, but he's a jerk - he's the creep, you know? He'll save the day, but he is the one with the photo op. It's his job, that's what he does; he'd rather have the glory but he's not really in it for all of the right reasons. It's not that he's a horrible person, it's just that he's not a nice guy - and that's great! The more different kinds of characters and conflicts and personalities you can bring into this team, the better the film is. Because you get the boy scout and the jerk, and then the others kind of fall in between. So you just try to make sure that you're respectful of the essence of every character when you're bringing them into a story, and that you keep what was so wonderful about the source material alive. It cannot be page for page, it cannot be line for line, panel for panel, but you just do what you can to keep the experience of reading that book alive as much as possible in the film.
IGN: Are you using a different approach with these films since they are destined to be released on DVD instead of theaters?
Kyle: Well, let's be honest: we're not Pixar. We don't have those kinds of budgets and that kind of timetable. But I don't look at the limitations and then say 'whew - what can we do now?' If you approach the projects from the limitation standpoint then you shouldn't be doing the work at all; if you don't respect the opportunity being given and the resources you have, then please step out of the room and give somebody else who wants to do this [the chance]. So I think everybody's heart is behind the projects and we give it the same respect we do any project we have. What is wonderful about these projects is that you don't have the [standards and practices] Saturday morning cartoon boards that say "no head blows, no broken glass." It's not to pooh-pooh Saturday morning which I do enjoy and we do have wonderful projects coming on television, but it's very freeing when you work with these guys who are so used to doing Saturday morning shows geared for 6-11 year-old kids and saying, 'no, no - we can hit him. You want a kiss? Absolutely! Romance? We'd love to see it'. So really we step back and we approach this as you would a live-action film: what is going to be in this scene that's going to enhance emotions, that going to make this a better movie? So if it takes seven punches in the head from the Hulk, you can have it. If it takes that kiss or that romantic moment, that quiet sensuality, have it. All of those boxes of toys are ours to play with and that's the beautiful side of this.
IGN: In a larger sense, I'd think that you would be able to more directly appeal to core fans because you aren't necessarily trying to create something with the same universal appeal as a big-budget live-action feature.
Kyle: Absolutely. I never want to sound like our live-action department isn't trying to make all of the fans happy, but as you're saying, to make the money it cannot just be the core fans that we love so much. It needs to be the masses. So choices are made to tell the best story possible that will appeal to the broadest audience. With these, the gamble is not so high; we can take risks. We can stay closer to the books. We can play a little more inside baseball and say 'you're going to get it, but maybe your girlfriend won't', and that's cool. But if she's entertained and she likes the characters, then we've done our job - and that's where I hope we succeed. I hope they can get into the characters and enjoy the fun, enjoy the humor, enjoy the individuals, but absolutely - this is for the fans. If we entertain them, we've done our job. We can take those risks. We're just trying to see how deep the comic book market can support us, and this is a gamble. For these first 4-6 films, it's really testing the waters, [and] if we succeed as a group, then it only opens more doors for us.
IGN: How much participation are you going to have in those upcoming films like Iron Man and Doctor Strange? In particular, how much connective tissue will there be between the Ultimate Avegners films and Iron Man since he has now been established?
Kyle: The good thing is for people who may not know Iron Man is they have a sense of who he is, but those two worlds are not connected. Our Ultimate Avengers and Iron Man are not the same world; just like on the rack you've got an Iron Man book, an Avengers book, but they don't necessarily cross. You've got individual creative teams, individual directions and stories, so that's what we're approaching these films as. Avengers, if people love it and continue to watch it, we'll keep making more of them. If they enjoy Iron Man, he'll continue to grow. But the potential down the road to have an Iron Man-Doctor Strange crossover exists because it's like taking two titles and all of a sudden combining those worlds into one movie and then putting them back on their own tracks again. But we want every film that we do to have its own life, its own breath and its own look, so that if you see a flash on the TV, you know it's not Avengers, it's Iron Man. So just like the fans support characters and creative teams, that's how these films are ebbing approached. Each film has its own bone structure, its own palette, its own look, and the only connection between Iron Man and Ultimate Avengers is that Marc Worden, the exceptionally-talented voice actor who played Tony is also playing Tony in Iron Man. You get a voice that good, you don't let go of it.
IGN: Are you contributing to the writing of those films?
Kyle: I have about the best job at Marvel. I oversee the creative development on every project in animation. So just as I was involved in translating the story with Greg Johnson on the first film, and then Greg and I on the second, I've been very fortunate because I get to oversee a lot of how the story comes together and work with Greg when he writes the scripts. Everything creative I get to have a hand in, so I'm incredibly lucky. I really just get make sure that Marvel's characters are protected and what the fans are expecting is considered at every stage. It's definitely a hard job - we have a lot of projects going on - but it's a wonderful burden because there are so many worlds within Marvel's universe and I get to have a hand in how they're all translated into animation.
