The new Justice League DVD deals with two worlds, and it took two directors to make it happen. “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths” is an all new PG-13 movie from Warner and DC.

Lauren Montgomery and Sam Liu, the animation directors of the past three DC Universe films, have combined their talents to bring “Crisis on Two Earths” to the screen as a blockbuster tale of super heroes and super villains engaged in the ultimate battle of parallel worlds and, through a diabolical plan launched by Owlman, puts the balance of all existence in peril.

The film will be released by Warner Home Video on February 23 as a Special Edition 2-disc version on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as single disc DVD, and On Demand and digital download.

QUESTION: How did you two go about co-directing Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths?

LAUREN MONTGOMERY: We kind of just went over the whole film together and it was really good to get two different points of view as a check and balance for each other. If we disagreed, we found compromises that would work. If one of us felt strongly about something, we just traded off — Sam would take a sequence he felt strongly about, then I’d take one I wanted. But for the most part, we agreed. We both work in such different ways, it was interesting to see how someone else works and learn from it.

SAM LIU: We went through the film front to back, and if we ran into a problem or an area where either of us had an issue, usually where we thought it could be stronger or could be playing better, we usually solved it right on the spot. If we got to a section that was requiring a lot more revisions, one of us would jump on it and the other would move the rest of the film forward until we hit another rough spot. So that was our process.

QUESTION: What have you learned from each other?

LM: Sam breaks things down a lot, he’s very analytical. I tend not to. He spends a lot of time thinking about the story and getting into all the nooks and crannies of it, and I like to work with the general story. He’ll read the whole book, I’ll read the back of the book. I try to get the emotional points down so people can understand them, but Sam will go even deeper to use shots and set-ups to drive the point home, sometimes metaphorically. He thinks harder than I do.

SL: Our processes are very different. I like getting into a script and breaking things down. Maybe I don’t have the best ideas, but I’m pretty good at recognizing where things are needed. I really liked the back and forth process (with Lauren), talking about ideas and batting it back and forth to find a good solution. Lauren is more instinctual, she works more from the gut. And I think she works off reaction rather than an intellectual breakdown. I’m the other way by process. But I do feel like sometimes I over-analyze things, when sometimes it’s almost like the emotional flow of the movie is good enough. Lauren gets that. Sometimes logic can be bypassed if the scene is engaging enough, or interesting enough. It’ll bridge gaps and you don’t need to analytically fix all those gaps.

QUESTION: What do you think you might have taught each other?

LM: I think Sam stresses out slightly less when I’m around. He stresses and I don’t. I think I calm him down a little bit. But when he’s alone, he stresses out just as much. Hopefully I helped with that.

SL: I don’t think I taught her anything (he laughs). She’s a free-flowing, shoot-from-the-hip kind of person, and I’m kind of an angster — I nitpick things. I like getting into the story, and from there some things do need working out — things related to the emotional journey of a character that need to be highlighted or punctuated to set something up for later. I’m a stickler for things like that. And I think she saw those things.

I do stress, though — and there are times when I’m freaking out about something and she puts me at total ease. And then there’s times when I’m freaking out and she’s fighting me on it, and it makes it worse. I think we’re both control freaks in our own way, it’s just a difference in approach. I fixate on a lot of things, and she thinks things are just good enough, so let’s move on. We have an innate concept about the overall picture, but she focuses more on the acting and poses and timing and movement, and I think more on structure. I guess there’s a good balance.

QUESTION: Do you have a favorite scene in “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths?”

LM: There’s a fight between Wonder Woman and Olympia that I thought was really beautifully animated. That’s always fun to watch. It was boarded well, but the overseas animators took the drawings from the boards and really plussed it out. I think they just enjoy animating girl fights overseas because those scenes always come back looking good.

SL: More than one scene, I like the overall relatability of the Justice League characters. There was great character interaction. When I watch movies, I like something that has an emotional connection, and this film definitely does.

Specifically, I think the spectacle of these evenly matched supers fighting was really cool. Superman versus Ultraman. Flash fighting someone equally as fast. Strengths against strengths. Jay Oliva boarded the last fight sequence and the Superwoman-Wonder Woman fight is great. They’re both strong, super powerful women and I think it was brutal enough as is, but the way Jay made Wonder Woman use the lasso to slam Superwoman to the ground is pretty amazing.

The battle between Owlman and Batman is awesome, too, because it’s sort of this weird intellectual standoff. Owlman is so far into his psychosis as to how the universe operates, it’s very existential. His concept is crazy, but the way he reasons out the technology of how things work and the way he thinks, it gave us great room to improvise Batman’s reaction. And then when they actually fight, it’s brutal. They do these gadget fights, sort of a modern ninja battle. The sound effects on the planet, the colors, the way it’s animated, it all works really well. And James Woods’ voice is perfect — most of the Crime Syndicate is very thuggish, they’re all about stealing money. But Owlman has created the ultimate plan to annihilate everybody, and James Woods does this great build-up. It’s great acting. He plays Owlman as a little bit off and kind of creepy, but not sinister creepy. His cadence is great, and his voice is almost charming in a way. It was a good mix of all the things I thought we’d have a problem with if we went too far one way or the other. It’s a great, tight sequence and I’m very happy the way it all came together.

QUESTION: What were the challenges of directing this film?

LM: It was a challenge because we had a really large cast of characters — lots of main characters — and they all needed a decent amount of screen time. Both the good guys and the bad. We had to make sure the audience got to know each of those characters and make sure they had a presence in the film that was important, and that was a challenge.

SL: Definitely the size of the cast and how to give enough screen time to everyone. At one point, Green Lantern was a little light on having enough important things to do. We needed to add a bit for Lex Luthor, too, and I still don’t think we did enough. We added a fight to show that Lex can fight, too, and tried to beef him up a bit. But there just wasn’t enough screen time to accommodate everyone.

QUESTION: Do you have a favorite character?

LM: Superwoman … just because she’s so wrong. She’s a bully, but she’s got the muscle to back it up. She’s everything you shouldn’t be, but is fun to work with.

QUESTION: What skills you learned or developed on past projects were you able to apply to this film?

LM: We had the same animation studio that did Wonder Woman, so we were able to draw from the work done on Wonder Woman and improve on that. Overall, the animation was good in Wonder Woman, but there was some poor stuff, too. I think they really improved — they saw what we responded to in Wonder Woman and they tried to do what they knew we liked, and it was good.

SL: I think, this whole process was better for me this time, especially working with Bruce (Timm) and Lauren. I was able to let go a little bit and not have to over-think things, and still know that things would work out. I generally stress over everything until the very last minute. With Lauren, I sort of learned that you can say "that’s enough" and move on to the next thing. I appreciate Lauren and her patience, and that we’re still friends. In the end, you take care of the important things and everything will work out.

NEW YORK — The highly-anticipated Wonder Woman animated feature will be released March 3 on DVD. The movie tells an updated version of Wonder Woman’s origins and her first big showdown.

The feature stars Keri Russell as Wonder Woman, Nathan Fillion (Steve Trevor), Rosario Dawson (Artemis), Alfred Molina (Ares), and Virginia Madsen (Hippolyta), and was helmed by Lauren Montgomery, one of the directors on the acclaimed Superman: Doomsday feature.

Blast got the chance to sit down with Montgomery to talk about the upcoming film.

Kellen Rice: First of all, congratulations on the film.

Lauren Montgomery: Thank you!

KR: Last night’s reception had to be exciting.

LM: Definitely.

KR: What’s your experience as a woman working on this film in an industry that’s pretty dominated by men?

LM: I personally haven’t run across any sexism in my career, which is nice. As far as being a woman that gets to work on Wonder Woman, it’s awesome. It’s the greatest thing, because I’ve worked on a lot of action cartoons which are typically geared towards boys and men. And so I draw a whole lot of guys a whole lot of the time. So getting to draw a girl and having her be a main character in the film, as well as a very heavily female supporting case, it was a dream come true. I always want to do whatever I can to get more women involved. When I was a kid watching action cartoons, it was all these guys and there would be be the one token female in the case and she was always my favorite. I always wanted a show that had more girls in it, but a good action show with girls in it, not just the usual stuff like My Little Pony or Strawberry Shortcake.

KR: You definitely did that with the opening scene of Wonder Woman.

LM: Yeah.

KR: And the supporting cast was so varied. Tell me how you developed those characters.

LM: Being that we have a large cast of Amazons, and they’re all women, we really had to make sure that finer details like facial features and color schemes were individual to each character, so you didn’t get confused watching the movie and think everyone was the same character.‚ 

KR: The color palette was very striking, very bold colors.

LM: Yeah, well especially in the opening scene we went into it wanting everything to have a red feel to it, just because it was such a bloody and violent scene. So we put a lot of red in the costumes, red on the field — and then when we get to Themyscira all the colors were softer, while still saturated and very bright, but just more calming. So we tried to play with the color palette so that the color would fit each scene.

KR: How did you feel when you saw the film for the first time? What was your reaction?

LM: As we’ve been watching it, we started out with pure silence and the animation, and the first time I got to see it with sound effects and music, I found myself getting a little choked up at parts because the music is so amazing. Music does so much to kind of cue your emotions. And the sound effects do a whole lot to add reality and weight to something. When you see two swords hitting in silent animation, it’s not that impressive. But as soon as you add that clink, it’s like “oh, those swords are heavy!” So adding sound to animation is really what saves it. So when we see the finished product it’s so much more impressive seeing it with all the bells and whistles, and I think it really came together.

KR: There were definitely adult themes in the movie. Do you think that animation is heading towards an adult audience as well a children’s audience?

LM: When we make these things we are trying to make movies that we ourselves want to watch. And in Japan, it’s been this way for pretty much forever, they don’t regard animation as a medium only geared towards children. It’s just another medium. It’s another way of storytelling. And in Japan, adults watch cartoons all the time. In America, sadly a lot of times anything animated is assumed to be for kids. If it’s a cartoon, it’s for kids and adults can’t watch it. And we’re just trying to change that, we’re trying to bring animation to a standard where everyone can watch it, and everyone can enjoy it.‚  <

KR: There’s also been a big stigma against superheroes, too.

LM: Right, and I think that video games and comics are becoming more mainstream. It’s not just geared towards the comic book geek, who lives in, you know, his mother’s basement. It’s for everyone – geeks are everyone. Like everyone has an inner geek and you’ll find the most normal of people playing video games these days. And so the audience is just becoming infinitely wider and I think all of these mediums – video games, comics, animation — will become much more accepted to everyone.

KR: Do you think that’s partly do the so-called Geek chic and the popularity of movies like The Dark Knight? Do you think that’s part of the reason why a movie like Wonder Woman can get made today?

LM: The kids who used to watch the‚ Saturday‚ morning cartoons are now adults and they’re now getting into the positions where they can green-light the movies they always wanted to see. And so the more kids that are watching these shows when they grow up they’re going to do the same thing. I think it’s only just begun, and I think it’s got everywhere to go from this point.

KR: What movie hasn’t been made that you want to work on?

LM: I’m more than happy to work on any comic-book female-driven movie. Those are the ones that I enjoy working on most, just because I love working with female characters. I find that they’re more expressive, they have more options, they’re just more fun to direct. That being said, I’m also a fan of Aquaman. He’s always gotten a bad rap, and I think there’s untapped potential there and I’d like to see him actually be cool for once.

KR: Someone at the panel brought up Selina Kyle. Could you see her carrying her own film?

LM: I definitely could, and she’s an intriguing character. I think she’d be awesome to work on, especially because she has that side of her that not only can she be good but she can be a villain as well. And that makes her just that more interesting.

KR: Wonder Woman in three words?

LM: Three words? Ah, I don’t know…

KR: Well, that’s kind of unfair of me.

LM: Powerful, yet a real woman, not real in the sense that she’s a superhero, but real in the sense that she has the same emotions that any woman would, but yet she has this amazing strength that every woman can look up to. I think she’s an awesome figure that way.

KR: What do you think has made Wonder Woman endure for so long?

LM: She has an interesting story, which is nice. She’s got this really interesting back story which is rooted in this mythology, and mythology itself is just a series of epic stories. And we also have the feminist aspect of her, which is that she is the one hero woman that’s kind of standing on her own in the DC universe. Most other women have spawned as sidekicks or villains to some other male hero, but you know she’s on her own.‚ 

KR: What’s your process of‚ creating a character? How did you create this version of Wonder Woman?

LM: First I’ll just brainstorm and put down a whole bunch of different sketches. From there, you just throw out the ones you hate. And you start to hone in on qualities you like. For instance Wonder Woman has a lot for different costume versions. And one of the things I thought of, in Justice League she has more low-cut panties and in New Frontier, she has the skirt. So I wanted to a different version, just to make her a different Wonder Woman. So I gave her the more high-cut bikini bottoms, and that’s just a technical thing. The hair shape was just something I found early on and I thought was a distinct shape.‚ 

KR: It also modernized the character.

LM: Right, and also just the fact that we were trying to make her younger and so that was a conscious choice on my part.

KR: What about Steve Trevor?

LM: I looked at the reference for Steve, and he looked kind of dated, kind of older. So we tried to bring him a little more into the now. I actually originally started with him have slightly longer hair, but then Bruce made the very good point that if he’s in the Air Force, he would need a shorter hair cut so we have to revise that and I’d made a page full of possible Steve hair-dos and I showed them to Bruce and he said, oh, I like the Caesar cut. And it’s easy to animate. So we went with that.

KR: It works with the Greek and Roman theme.

LM: And that’s one thing too. Ares had a similar bang style.

KR: You talked about the design of Hades at the panel. What kind of reaction did you want the audience have after seeing him?

LM: I’m hoping that they almost get a little uncomfortable, because I really wanted him to look massive. Not even in girth, but just 50% larger even in bone size from Ares. I had this theory that Zeus and Hades are like, the top tier of gods. Ares is one step down because he’s a son of Zeus. So I wanted just a size difference if they were standing, and then I expanded Hades outward. And he was actually super-fun to draw, with all those curves. And then someone pointed out that he looked like Ursula, and you know what, if he is an Ursula rip-off, it was 100% subconscious. It was not intentional at all, but it does happen that The Little Mermaid is my favorite movie of all time.‚ 

KR: I think that’s all our time. Thanks so much for sitting down with me — great job on the film. It was a pleasure.

LM: Thanks.

Is your curiosity piqued yet? Head to the stores to pick up your own copy of Wonder Woman on March 3.

NEW YORK — First, let me disclaim: I saw the upcoming DC animated feature “Wonder Woman” in the best possible setting, in a packed house with probably five or six-hundred excited geeks.

Actually, you know what? The movie would have been awesome if I’d watched it on a crappy laptop in some dark room somewhere.

Let me backtrack.

The Michael Jelenic-penned, Bruce Timm-produced “Wonder Woman” tells a new-and-improved origin story for the Lasso of Truth-wielding Amazon that begins before Themyscira even really exists. The opening scene is a massive battle between the Amazons, led by Virginia Madsen’s Queen Hippolyta, and God of War Ares’ horde, with no Diana in sight.

After Zeus and Hera intervene in the war, the Amazons are given the island paradise, Ares as their powerless prisoner, and the promise of a daughter in the future. Years pass and Diana arrives on scene.

But before giving away too much, let’s talk tech specs.

The animation and style were both top-notch, of the same quality as “Batman: Gotham Knight” but with a feminine flavor appropriate to a story about Wonder Woman. Director Lauren Montgomery has mentioned before how she counts the Disney princesses among her influences and while the style was distinctly separate from that, with straighter lines and cleaner angles, the influence was clear to see especially in the characters’ faces.

Wonder Woman herself was a far cry from the Marilyn-esque, stiletto-wearing Wonder Woman of yore; this Diana was a modernized and altogether tough-looking character; she was tall and statuesque without being manly, strong without bulging muscles, and, of course, voiced wonderfully by Keri Russell.

The supporting cast of Amazons were beautifully designed and Rosario Dawson’s hilarious Artemis was a scene-stealer.

And speaking of scene-stealers, Nathan Fillion’s Steve Trevor stole the entire show. Not only did the character have most of the best lines of the film (some surprisingly scandalous, though none up to “the hammer is my penis” levels of bawdiness). “Wonder Woman” does a fine job of walking the line with Steve as a guy physically weaker than Wonder Woman while making him a hero in his own right.

The film also manages to deal with some real issues in a way that is neither soap-boxy nor half-assed. The modern-day Wonder Woman is a fantastic feminist character without bowing to any clichƒ©s, and the film asks a lot of serious questions about the nature of men and women’s relationships and the ways that men and women deal with conflicts.

One of the best scenes in the film occurs when Diana first arrives in New York City and is walking in a park with Steve Trevor. She encounters a small girl who’s crying because the boys won’t let her pretend sword-fight with them. Wonder Woman finds that unacceptable, of course, and that mini-arc finds a hilarious and poignant conclusion.

The film was also paced beautifully. Each character had a meaningful and unique story arc that created a lot of depth to the overall story and theme, and the remarkable voice talent (including Alfred Molina as villain Ares) really sold it.

In all, I though the movie was great: beautiful, funny, well-written, and an altogether pleasure to watch… and watch again.

Grab your copy in stores on March 3rd.