WI Batman Mask of the Phantasm was Sucessful?

Basically what it says on the tin. To those who don't know, Batman:Mask of the Phantasm was a major animated film based of the very successful Batman Animated Series. However when it was released into theaters it had almost no advertising and flopped hard. It did however receive major critical success and has since gone on to major success in the home video market. So what if the film managed to get a more sustained effort by WB's marketing to turn the critical acclaim into box office success? Do we see more animated Superhero films and does the darker more serious tone of the film effect the Live Action Batman films, as at the time only the two Burton films had been produced.
 
Basically what it says on the tin. To those who don't know, Batman:Mask of the Phantasm was a major animated film based of the very successful Batman Animated Series. However when it was released into theaters it had almost no advertising and flopped hard. It did however receive major critical success and has since gone on to major success in the home video market. So what if the film managed to get a more sustained effort by WB's marketing to turn the critical acclaim into box office success? Do we see more animated Superhero films and does the darker more serious tone of the film effect the Live Action Batman films, as at the time only the two Burton films had been produced.

I am thinking it could get them to invest more in animated films for the big screen and with the darker and more serious tone might have the others try and lean toward that in their films. I have no idea if Marvel would try something like that though
 
It certainly occurs to me that animated comic book movies might get a shot at mainstream acceptance. As it is, such things seem like a niche market, which seems unfair to me as someone who grew up on the DCAU.
 
I am thinking it could get them to invest more in animated films for the big screen and with the darker and more serious tone might have the others try and lean toward that in their films. I have no idea if Marvel would try something like that though
Marvel might, but unlike DC/WB Marvel didn't have a strong animation department tied to the comic studio and given the timeline they're about to be in no real position to try to financially back such a studio. They might however end up selling the rights for a character or two to like Disney or Don Bluth like they did with Sony and Fox.

It certainly occurs to me that animated comic book movies might get a shot at mainstream acceptance. As it is, such things seem like a niche market, which seems unfair to me as someone who grew up on the DCAU.
It'd depend a lot on the follow up. The next movie they did was Sub-Zero which was more middle of the road, but was also working with a fraction of the budget. They might boost the production values if they plan a big screen release. It'd be neat too if they decided to make animated films to get around the lack of effects work. Batman can be done in live action pretty cheaply, but someone like Superman or the Flash weren't really possible by the early 90's. I do wonder if it'd mean getting a feature Wonder Woman film earlier though. While there were a bunch of stupid and petty reasons that meant that Hollywood was unwilling to back a major action film staring a woman animation lacked a lot of those issues and many studios were more willing to put out a cartoon with a female lead, usually with the idea of cashing in on the Disney Princess market.
 
Basically what it says on the tin. To those who don't know, Batman:Mask of the Phantasm was a major animated film based of the very successful Batman Animated Series. However when it was released into theaters it had almost no advertising and flopped hard. It did however receive major critical success and has since gone on to major success in the home video market. So what if the film managed to get a more sustained effort by WB's marketing to turn the critical acclaim into box office success? Do we see more animated Superhero films and does the darker more serious tone of the film effect the Live Action Batman films, as at the time only the two Burton films had been produced.
Then more people now the best Batman movie ever made!
 
The problem with this is that it would detract from the big budget live action Batman movies. How do you convince people to spend money to see Val Kilmer or George Clooney when a cartoon version voiced by Kevin Conroy turns out to be far superior. The DC animated universe still turns out films much better than their live action rivals but only the real fans know about them.
 
The problem with this is that it would detract from the big budget live action Batman movies. How do you convince people to spend money to see Val Kilmer or George Clooney when a cartoon version voiced by Kevin Conroy turns out to be far superior. The DC animated universe still turns out films much better than their live action rivals but only the real fans know about them.
I mean MOTP came out in 93, Batman Forever came out in 95. They're not really stepping on toes here. It might mean that WB is encouraged to continue the Burton style of live action films given that the Batman Animated series took most of its cues from those films. If there was a proven successful film that was both kid friendly and still pretty dark they might want to stay in that general tone.
 
While pop culture TLs aren't my thing, I have often pondered on what could make western animation aimed at adults relevant and prospering. Not CGI Pixar stuff aimed at children, but actual adult themed animation, like French stuff or maybe some anime.
 
Warner would never have given Batman Forever to Joel Schumacher, MGM would have pushed forward with their plans to bring Sonic (animated) and Spiderman (Non Animated) to the screen, Marvel would have had tried giving some of their characters adaptations much earlier, and maybe even some anime films would have come to the US a bit earlier.
 
Warner would never have given Batman Forever to Joel Schumacher,
Honestly they probably would have. Returns still sucked regardless of MotP. They might not have pushed him into what Batman and Robin became though. Would that be a good thing? Eh...no idea. Schumacher has never really made anything great, but without studio interference Batman and Robin could have been significantly better (happily rendering Returns even worse in pop culture's memory, which can only be a good thing.)
 
If MOtP had been a success, I personally believe that the DCAU probably would still be around to this day and that the post-Batman Returns movies most likely wouldn't have been given to Schumacher. Maybe instead, the might have let Timm try his hand at directing an LA flick or two?
 
Warner would never have given Batman Forever to Joel Schumacher, MGM
Schumacher care for batman and tried but was too many cookers in the kitchen, still forever was flawed but decent...but B&R was awful and even Schumacher hated it, he say he should have fought the meddling more.

But in topic...we've now animated movies sucessful alngside live action that means something like a more sucessful animated franchises for comics...even videogames in tjhe future
 
Your best bet is to have Returns be an absolute disaster or poor enough to ruin interest in more live action latex, ending any hope of a 'Batman 3'. However DC notice the comics and cartoon are still big draws and blame the filmmakers, not Wayne & Co. So they invest in the (comparatively) very cheap animated film, give it a decent ad budget and the additional boost that a lot of comic book fans thought superhero films were dead after Returns landing like a wet fart. The scale compared to the Burton films is tiny however it proves a runaway hit.

Cue a series of successful DC Universe films and op-eds explaining Superheroes are just too silly for live action however within cartoons they take on mythic archeblahblahblah. Mini superhero boom, maybe mini animation boom but unless it goes superbig I can't see non-Disney animated movies becoming mainstream for beyond a specific span for the DCAU fad. However overall it might make the market more accepting of toons.
 
Your best bet is to have Returns be an absolute disaster or poor enough to ruin interest in more live action latex, ending any hope of a 'Batman 3'. However DC notice the comics and cartoon are still big draws and blame the filmmakers, not Wayne & Co. So they invest in the (comparatively) very cheap animated film, give it a decent ad budget and the additional boost that a lot of comic book fans thought superhero films were dead after Returns landing like a wet fart. The scale compared to the Burton films is tiny however it proves a runaway hit.

Cue a series of successful DC Universe films and op-eds explaining Superheroes are just too silly for live action however within cartoons they take on mythic archeblahblahblah. Mini superhero boom, maybe mini animation boom but unless it goes superbig I can't see non-Disney animated movies becoming mainstream for beyond a specific span for the DCAU fad. However overall it might make the market more accepting of toons.

A good idea for that would be for Warner to give Batman Returns away to McDonalds, kind of like what happened with Batman Forever, add a dash of studio cutting like with Showdown in Little Tokyo,then add some studio interference like what Warner did with Deadly Friend and ta da! You have the perfect seeding ground for that to happen
 
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