Title: Gen¹³ Release Year: 2000Production Country: United StatesFilm Director: Kevin Altie

Title:Gen¹³

Release Year: 2000
Production Country: United States
Film Director: Kevin Altieri
Length: 86 Minutes


Gen¹³ is a fictional superhero team and comic book series originally published by WildStorm Productions, under the Image Comics banner, which went on to become an imprint for DC Comics. The comic featured a loosely organized team of super-powered beings composed of five teens and their mentor. The comic book series premiered in 1994. It was the best-selling independent comic for nearly five years. For example, 16 of the top 100 selling comic books in 1996 were Gen¹³ titles.

The series’ success stemmed from being geared thematically towards an audience of teens and twenty-somethings — as opposed to an older audience as many comic books were at the time, the art style — which was noted for being sexy and risqué, and a female protagonist who was bisexual if not a lesbian. It was ‘edgy’. 

Disney wanted to capitalize on the success of Gen¹³ so they bought the film rights to the property when the comic was only a few years in publication and then hired the Batman: The Animated Series director Kevin Altieri to oversee the project.

Gen¹³ was produced between 1998 and 1999, with an intended direct-to-DVD release. In 2000 the animated film (sharing the same name as the comic) was given limited release. After a few select public screenings worldwide, Gen¹³ was never officially released in the US on home video as intended. Many say the film would have earned a PG-13 rating had it been officially released.

The film was produced in part by Buena Vista Pictures, who are owned by Disney, and set for a 2000 release date on home video. Limited theatrical distribution (to promote the film) was to be handled by Touchstone Pictures who have released other adult/alternative Disney animated films including Who Framed Roger Rabbit,The Nightmare Before Christmas,Gnomeo & Juliet, and Strange Magic.

By the time this film was nearing completion, WildStorm Productions, publisher of the Gen¹³ comics, had been sold to DC Comics which is owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment. Disney decided to eat the cost of production and seal the film in their vault, rather than release and promote a property that had been acquired by a rival studio.

Further ensuring the film will remain buried in the Disney vaults is that DC’s chief rival Marvel Comics was acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2009. Big Hero 6, which released in 2014, is the first Disney animated film to feature Marvel Comics characters. Both properties feature a group of witty, savvy teen friends who rely on each other to fight their foes. 

Mark Hamill, famous for voicing The Joker in various Batman animated series and films, voices Gen¹³’s villain Threshold. 
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Synopsis:

Caitlin Fairchild is a teenager offered a place in an institute for gifted children. She soon learns that her new school isn’t really a school, but rather a military project to turn children with a special genetic structure into super soldiers. This first generation of genetically altered teens are to be used as pawns in a secret government program called Project Genesis. What they don’t realize is that they have been turned into “Gen-Actives” who have superhuman powers. Three of the recruits: Caitlin, Edward Chang, and Roxy Spaulding uncover the government plot and thus release their newly activated super-human powers. After developing incredibly enhanced abilities, Caitlin and her friends rebel against the military project that created them. The threesome enlist the help of a renegade government agent and use their newfound powers to escape the military compound and rebel against the military forces trying to kill them off.