According to SlashFilm, at the very end of the DC panel, Zack Snyder took over to make an announcement about a Man of Steel sequel:

I’m gonna take the lectern from you, because some shit’s going to happen up here.
It’s official that we are going to make another Superman movie. And you say, Zack, what is the movie about? But you don’t want me to tell you that. You want to go and see the movie. But I can say that maybe there’s a single element that will be in the film that I could… help you out with. I was thinking about how to do that. I pored through the DC Universe to look for a way to tell this thing. We’re writing the thing now, but I came across a thing I found that’ll help you understand it.

The image in the banner came on screen and a voiceover was done:

I want you to remember, Clark, in all the years to come, in all your most private moments, I want you to remember your hand at your throat. I want you to remember the one man who beat you.

This line comes from the end of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Snyder made it very clear that this will not be a direct adaptation, but will instead be used to help form a new story based on many cues from the source. Henry Cavill and the cast from Man of Steel are slated to reprise their roles, while the part of Batman has not yet been cast.

Press release after the jump!

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Following a screening of Batman: Year One, WB animation producer Bruce Timm announced to the audience their next movie projects.
The next feature will be Justice League Doom, an adaptation of Tower of Babel. Following that will be Superman vs. The Elite, and then the long await The Dark Knight Returns.

The Dark Knight Returns will be Warner Premier’s first two part feature, and Timm said the movie will be very faithful to the original. No voice cast has been announced by Andrea Romano said she is interested in bringing long time Batman actors Kevin Conroy and Mark Hammill on board. We first reported TDKR would be a future project in April.

Timm was also asked about Kingdom Come as a possible project, but said that the style of the artwork does not lend itself to 2D animation. The Killing Joke remains a possibility for the future.

Via IGN

Warner Bros has made many popular modern DC books into animated features over the last 4 years, and after getting their feet wet with fare like Under The Red Hood and New Frontier, they’re finally going to go for one of the biggest, baddest comics in their library: The Dark Knight Returns.

Returns tells the story of a 55 year old Bruce Wayne returning to his Batman identity after a decade’s absence. He confronts Harvey “Two Face” Dent, The Joker, and Superman at various points in the story, and takes on a new Robin as his partner. The series, written and and drawn by Frank Miller, is one of the most highly regarded in the DC canon, and helped lay the blueprint for the dark and gritty Batman that is best known today.

WB had a real misfire in their first animated production, re-writing and altering The Death and Return of Superman into a standalone 75 minute feature. Literally dozens of issues and hundreds of characters were cut from the story, and the movie still felt rushed. By comparison, choosing shorter stories (no more than 6 issues) to adapt has worked well for WB, and the bulk of The Dark Knight Returns should make into a fine animated feature. There are some thematic elements that may push WB beyond their usual PG-13 rating, but I certainly hope the original story makes it through unmolested.

Elements of The Dark Knight Returns were present in a Batman The Animated Series episode, “Legends Of The Dark Knight.” In it, 3 children share stories about what they know about Batman. One of the kids is a dead ringer for TDKR’s Robin, Carrie Kelley, and her tale depicts a 5 minute sequence almost directly lifted from the page of Batman fighting the Mutant gang. Michael Ironside provided the voice of Batman in this sequence, and would honestly make a fine choice to reprise the role in a full feature. See a clip at the bottom of this article.

An animated production of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One is already nearing completion, and is expected to premeire at Comic Con 2011 in San Diego, with a DVD/Blu Ray Release following.

Tip via Joey O and [Bleeding Cool]

Didn’t read the original book? Its never too late to catch up on the classics.