‘Dynamic Duo’ Could Be One of DC’s Most Expensive Animated Movies Yet

DC Studios has spent the past two years carefully building out its animated slate alongside its live-action DCU releases, treating projects like ‘Creature Commandos’ as proof the studio could compete in the animation space without sacrificing quality. That groundwork set the stage for something considerably more ambitious: the studio’s first theatrical animated feature under its current leadership.

That film is ‘Dynamic Duo,’ an origin story following Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, the first and second Robins, as their early friendship gets tested by increasingly different visions for their futures. The project pairs DC Studios with Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and Matt Reeves’ production company 6th & Idaho, marking the first joint effort between DC Studios and Bill Damaschke’s animation division.

According to a new report, the film’s budget is reportedly estimated at $90 million, a figure that places it firmly in blockbuster territory for an animated feature and signals just how much confidence the studio has placed in the project. That number comes from The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage of a recent unionization drive at Swaybox Studios, the New Orleans-based animation house handling the film’s production.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, 137 workers at Swaybox, including animators, digital puppetry artists, and CG modelers, voted to join the crew union IATSE, with 84 workers voting in favor and 35 against. IATSE described the campaign, tied to a film reportedly budgeted at that $90 million figure, as one of the largest organizing drives in film and television production the union has undertaken in recent years.

That scale of investment lines up with the technical ambition behind the project itself. Swaybox is animating ‘Dynamic Duo’ using what’s known as “Momo animation,” a hybrid technique blending CGI animation, stop-motion elements, and live-action performance captured through puppetry, an approach far more labor-intensive than standard digital animation pipelines.

Despite Reeves’ involvement as a producer, ‘Dynamic Duo’ isn’t connected to his ongoing live-action Batman universe built around ‘The Batman’ and ‘The Penguin.’ Written by Matthew Aldrich, whose credits include ‘Coco’ and ‘Lightyear,’ the film instead traces Grayson and Todd’s early days as orphaned thieves who initially call themselves the Dynamic Duo, long before their paths diverge into the heroes and antiheroes DC fans know today.

Swaybox co-founders Arthur Mintz and Theresa Andersson are directing and producing the project respectively, marking the studio’s first feature film. DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran are producing alongside Reeves, with Michael Uslan serving as executive producer.

‘Dynamic Duo’ is currently set for a June 30, 2028 release in both IMAX and standard theatrical formats. With a reported budget on par with major live-action franchise entries and a genuinely experimental animation process behind it, DC Studios appears to be betting that audiences are ready to take its animated slate just as seriously as its live-action DCU output.

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