WI: Batman Beyond Reboots the Franchise

Prior to Christopher Nolan's films, there were a number of concepts for how to reboot the Batman franchise. One of those ideas was to used Batman Beyond as the basis for a live action film. It's a very interesting concept which, at the same time, would have taken the film franchise further away from the core character. On a personal note, I can remember Six Flags, prior to the Nolan films, beginning to ramp up sale of Batman Beyond merchandise. So it feels like it was a solid possibility. Personally, I see it as DC's answer to Spider-Man.

So what if the Batman films were rebooted with Batman Beyond instead of Nolan's trilogy?
 
Main reason I'm posting this is because I frankly love the idea of Michael Keaton taking the role of old Bruce Wayne. That's cool, and it could be a studio prospect where they can sell it as taking the character back to square one.

I think the film treatment would modify the source material. I always found the concept of Batman Beyond interesting but I didn't like many elements and design choices myself. I think a film version could modify quite a bit beyond the basics. The look of that future would be one of them. I think it'd look to the animated series but be different and more realistic. Overall, it could be a reverse of the relationship between the Burton films and the Animated Series.
 
If the first Beyond style Batman film goes well, Mark Hamill will be immortalized as the Joker a few years early if a live action version of Return of the Joker is made and sells just as well if not better. Heath Ledger playing a live action Joker at all might be butterflied away.
 
Depending on start of production, how about Jared Padalecki (of Supernatural fame) for Terry McGinnis, Rosario Dawson as Max, Michaela Conlin as Dana, and Helen Mirren as Commissioner Gordon, with Keaton returning as Wayne?
 
If the first Beyond style Batman film goes well, Mark Hamill will be immortalized as the Joker a few years early if a live action version of Return of the Joker is made and sells just as well if not better. Heath Ledger playing a live action Joker at all might be butterflied away.

Mark Hamill wouldn't be playing the Joker in a live action format.

Depending on start of production, how about Jared Padalecki (of Supernatural fame) for Terry McGinnis, Rosario Dawson as Max, Michaela Conlin as Dana, and Helen Mirren as Commissioner Gordon, with Keaton returning as Wayne?

If they went with Keaton, I think the whole vibe from the studio and in terms of the film franchise would be a mea-culpa for the Schumacher films. It would be a very hard selling to the fans that things were getting back on track, and I think it could be a case where they'd have the Burton films as part of a canon with this Batman Beyond franchise, while kicking out the Schumacher ones. It'd also be an odd situation with the animated universe: the Burton films inspired the Animated Series, which produced Batman Beyond within the same canon, which then lead to Batman Beyond films that were possibly part of the Burton canon.

On that note, we could see a number of characters from the Burton films come back with the same actors. We could also see Tim Burton given producer status.
 
If the first Beyond style Batman film goes well, Mark Hamill will be immortalized as the Joker a few years early if a live action version of Return of the Joker is made and sells just as well if not better. Heath Ledger playing a live action Joker at all might be butterflied away.

Mark Hamill wouldn't be playing the Joker in a live action format.

But maybe a cameo appearance for Mark Hamill as the elderly Tim Drake?
 
To expand on a previous statement:

I think this would be DC's answer to the Spider-Man franchise of Sam Rami. It's the other strong superhero franchise of the early 2000s, outside of X-Men. It's the one thing DC can compete directly against. The Batman of Batman Beyond is the young, wise-crack character. It appeals to the teen market. I think Batman Beyond could go strong for a three film franchise before crapping the bed in some form or another, just as Spider-Man did. I'm not sure what effect this would have on superhero film properties. OTL, Marvel gave up on the major studios and took control to do their films in house. DC isn't Marvel, and even now it is not doing that, instead continuing to rely on Warner Bros (and I would heavily criticize the results of that). Ideally, a Batman Beyond reboot would not hinder Marvel's independence in film.
 
So what if the Batman films were rebooted with Batman Beyond instead of Nolan's trilogy?

It would fail. In the eyes of the public Bruce Wayne is batman. Change it too much and people won't recognise and they won't watch the movie. Oh and putting it in a sf setting probably also isn't a good idea. Not only does it make the production more expensive, it lowers the recognition for people. Basicly basing an extremely expensive movie on a obscure cartoon, most people don't know about is not a good idea.
 
It would fail. In the eyes of the public Bruce Wayne is batman. Change it too much and people won't recognise and they won't watch the movie. Oh and putting it in a sf setting probably also isn't a good idea. Not only does it make the production more expensive, it lowers the recognition for people. Basicly basing an extremely expensive movie on a obscure cartoon, most people don't know about is not a good idea.

I disagree. Based on the Guardians of the Galaxy principle, the public is willing to accept new projects so long as it is quality and marketable. Which Batman Beyond certainly is. It banks on the Batman franchise and name recognition, offers new story opportunities, can get viewers based on being some recognizable but new, and it can target the teen/young adult demographic and get some of that Matrix money. If it brought on Michael Keaton, etc., it could also tap into the established audience of those previous films.

And Batman Beyond was by no means obscure. Warner Bros sold that show pretty hard, and the merchandising for the series was pretty heavy in Warner corporate stores and locations around the 2000s. I remember my Six Flags had a lot of stuff for Batman Beyond. Given what corporations do, I honestly believe a lot of that was to build up interest and recognition leading up to a potential Batman Beyond film. I've noticed they're doing similar things with Deadpool currently. There's been a lot of posters and other merchandise I've noticed end of last year/earlier this year, and this was before the film even started production.
 
I guess the advantage of a Batman Beyond movie is that if it fails, they can always go back and reboot real-Batman instead fairly quickly.

Let's see, in OTL Warner Bros made the decision to develop a Batman: Year One movie (directed by Darren Aronofsky, written by Frank Miller) instead of Batman Beyond in 2000. It was abandoned in mid-2002 in favour of a Batman vs Superman movie (directed by Wolfgang Petersen, written by Andrew Kevin Walker) – then when they decided to go back to the "origin story for Batman" idea in early 2003, they pretty much started from scratch.

So, the most likely times at which a Batman Beyond movie would come out is either June 2003 or June 2004, depending on how quickly they can make it (and assuming they don't cancel it in favour of Batman vs Superman). If it's June 2003, assuming no butterflies, its main competition that month would be 2 Fast 2 Furious, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, Hollywood Homicide, Rugrats Go Wild, Alex & Emma, From Justin to Kelly, Ang Lee's Hulk, 28 Days Later and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. So it looks like the odds would be in its favour. (I have a hunch they'd release it on June 13th, the same day as Dumb and Dumberer, Hollywood Homicide and Rugrats Go Wild – it'd probably win the weekend.)

Another consequence of this is that JJ Abrams's Superman script has a much better chance of being made: it was also cancelled in favour of Batman vs Superman but was revived afterwards, but then when they hired Bryan Singer as director he insisted on changing everything and that's how Superman Returns was made instead.
 
Oh, yeah, and I doubt they'd do the "Keep the Burton movies, lose the Schumacher ones" thing. The Burton-Schumacher series never really relied very heavily on continuity anyway: each movie was pretty much standalone apart from a few references in dialogue. Their most likely approach would be to simply say "Sure, it's all canon" and not worry about it.
 
Oh, yeah, and I doubt they'd do the "Keep the Burton movies, lose the Schumacher ones" thing. The Burton-Schumacher series never really relied very heavily on continuity anyway: each movie was pretty much standalone apart from a few references in dialogue. Their most likely approach would be to simply say "Sure, it's all canon" and not worry about it.

The first franchise of Batman films didn't really have a de jure canon. It just ended up being a de facto canon. Burton's films are definitely linked together; same actors and style and they inform one another. From there it get's murkier because the Schumacher iteration is so different from the previous. Though it's not my take, you could argue even the two Schumacher films don't really link together canonically.

The thing is, if you brought back Keaton and whoever else, I think it would end up being a de facto rejection of the Schumacher films. Just as much as Superman Returns was a direct sequel to Superman II, ignoring III and IV.
 
The first franchise of Batman films didn't really have a de jure canon. It just ended up being a de facto canon. Burton's films are definitely linked together; same actors and style and they inform one another. From there it get's murkier because the Schumacher iteration is so different from the previous. Though it's not my take, you could argue even the two Schumacher films don't really link together canonically.
Batman Forever does feature callbacks to the first two movies: references to Catwoman, to the Joker as the killer of Batman's parents, to the fact that Batman himself killed people. It's just as solid a connection as between the first two.
The thing is, if you brought back Keaton and whoever else, I think it would end up being a de facto rejection of the Schumacher films. Just as much as Superman Returns was a direct sequel to Superman II, ignoring III and IV.
Not any more than Sean Connery's return as James Bond rejected the canonicity of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Remember that at the time, the decision to make Superman Returns ignore III and IV was regarded as really fuckin' weird.

I guess the only way they could say definitively that the Schumacher movies were not canon (which I think would be really petty) would be to state plainly that Batman never had a sidekick.
 
Paul Dini was involved with a proposed Batman Beyond film. Given his track record with Batman projects-I think there would have been at least had a solid script. The main villain was intended to be Ra's Al Ghul as was the case with Batman Begins. The pronunciation will stay Raysh vs. the Raz we hear in Nolan's films. I wonder whether a Batman Beyond film would seem to be too close to the plot of The Mask of Zorro to be as well received as Nolan's films were. Like that film-you have the traditional hero in an older mentor role-training his younger successor to adopt the persona that had once been his own-with the younger hero attempting to avenge a murdered family member.

I also doubt Michael Keaton would ever return to the role. He did say he would return "in a heart beat" under one condition. Keaton said he would play the part of Bruce Wayne again if Tim Burton directed the film. That's almost certainly not going to happen. Even if Warner Brothers were interested in hiring Burton-I doubt Burton would be willing to revisit a film franchise he had left over a decade ago by the point a Batman Beyond project would have been made.

Of course-since Bruce Wayne would serve in more of a mentor role than as the protagonist of the film-the most important casting decision is probably who plays Terry McGinnis.
 
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