Warner Animation Group is expanding their DC output again with the help of former Disney animation legends Ron Clements and John Musker, the team who worked on numerous House of Mouse classics such as Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Moana, who will be working with Space Jam: A New Legacy writer Celeste Ballard to being The Metal Men to screen. The Disney duo are already producing the new feature, have written the treatment for it, and are looking to also direct, while Craig Peck will be executively producing as Warner Animation looks to expand its relatively small hold on the market.

The Metal Men are a comic book creation of Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru, who in 1962 came up with the idea of a group of hero robots who have powers and personalities linked to the metals they represent, namely gold, iron, tin, mercury, lead and platinum. Developed by brilliant scientist William Magnus, the six androids featured in numerous adventures in the 1960s before spreading out to other parts of the DC Universe over the following decades. The stories featuring the team had no set tone, with some arcs being serious and somber affairs, while others were comedic and more light-hearted, and their many storylines ranged from them being assassins to being hunted by the government, and would even include many other periodic table metals when new characters were called for.

As the years went on, The Metal Men continued to show up in various places throughout DC’s animated series into the 1990s and 2000s, and there were multiple talks to movie the characters to live-action, although considering some of the visual effect limitations at the time, it was probably for the best that none of those attempts made it to screen. While the new feature will also be animation, with Warner Bros. rapidly expanding their DC output on HBO Max, it could only be a matter of time before we see a live-action version of the heroes making an appearance on screen.

While this has been no indication of what the storyline of this new project may be, what animation style it will follow or any ideas of a delivery timeline, the linking of Space Jam scribe Ballard may be a hint as to what kind of tone the film will adopt considering the writer's other comedy work on TBS comedy Wrecked and Sweet Vicious for MTV.

When it comes to the credentials of Clements and Musker, their CV is a smorgasbord of hits for Disney, including having a hand in their revival with the releases of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin in the late 80s/early 90s. Having worked as writers, directors and producers on many of Disney’s biggest hits of the time, they were the driving force behind films such as Hercules, Treasure Planet and The Princess and the Frog, which was one of the last traditional style animation movies releases under the Disney Animated Classics banner. With this kind of talent behind the project, we can expect Warner Animation Group to follow up next year’s DC League of Super-Pets with another certain hit.

This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.