Concept Art Teases The Batman Beyond Animated Film That Might Never Happen
Everyone has their Batman, the version of the Caped Crusader that first springs to the forefront of their minds whenever someone utters the name "Bruce Wayne." Typically, your Batman is the one you had as a child first falling in love with the comic book world of Gotham City, and for a generation of people, their Batman was Kevin Conroy. Conroy was the definitive voice of Batman in DC animated television shows, feature films, and video games for over three decades, with many viewing "Batman: The Animated Series" from Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski to be one of the best (if not the best) interpretations of the Dark Knight ever created.
That series concluded in 1995, but spawned numerous spin-offs. One of the most popular and memorable was 1999's "Batman Beyond," a show created and developed by Timm, Paul Dini, and Alan Burnett in a moment of desperation that became the unlikely successor to a beloved series.
Set in the then-distant future of 2019, "Batman Beyond" depicted a new, teenage Batman named Terry McGinnis in a neo-futuristic Gotham City under the tutelage of an aging Bruce Wayne. It's been 25 years since the series first hit the airwaves, but after the success of "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" at Sony Animation for Marvel Studios, there were rumblings that Warner Bros.' answer to that film's success was going to be a "Batman Beyond" movie. For fans of the animated "Batman" series, the idea of a "Batman Beyond" feature from one of the production designers behind the "Spider-Verse" films would be a dream come true.
And based on the concept art released today on Twitter/X by Yuhki Demers, that "Batman Beyond" movie looked cool as hell.
Batman meets Blade Runner
Yuhki Demers tweeted that he and Patrick Harpin of "My Dad the Bounty Hunter" fame had approached Warner Bros. and DC Comics about a "Batman Beyond" feature five months ago, complete with seriously stellar concept art. "Before we pitched, they warned us, 'There is absolutely no way we can do a "Beyond" movie,' but they loved our enthusiasm," Demers wrote. "We pitched the outline for the entire film, and what started as a 'never' turned into a 'maybe.'" The team has been apparently pitching the project up the corporate ladder in the hopes of getting the attention of DC Studios CEO James Gunn, with today's social media blast more than proving there's an audience for a "Batman Beyond" feature.
Considering "Batman Beyond" took place in 2019 while released in 1999, it's likely that this new film could/would/should take place 20 years ahead of our current timeline, putting the film somewhere around 2045. Or, based on the concept art, the same range as "Blade Runner 2049," as the original "Blade Runner" was also set in 2019. The vibrant colors of the cyberpunk, neo-futuristic Gotham would be a feast for the eyes, and the concept art indicating that the big baddie villain would be the shapeshifter Inque all but guarantees a home run from a story perspective. DC has been the head driver of the superhero struggle bus for a while now, and while Gunn's plans for an imminent reset of the cinematic all sound promising, there's no denying that the "Spider-Verse" films are the best superhero films being made today, period. If DC wants to be competitive, they're going to need to step it up in the animation field, and "Batman Beyond" would be a license to print money.