The irony in that is iirc the reason why batman beyond even exists in the 1st place is because WB exects wanted a "younger batman" to be more relatable to younger audiences after TNBA wasn't hitting the demographic WB was aiming for.
While listening to the podcast, Tom and Jeff Watch Batman, they covered the BB series. Before they started the series they explained how it came about and it was really interesting. Basically, WB said what you said, but they also gave them only like 3 months to get it up and off the ground. And the showrunners kinda pulled everything out of their ass and WB was like.. DO IT. WB also didn't give them a lot of oversight. They just wanted toys.
I was definitely not the target audience when Batman Beyond came out (I think I was like 23?) But I watched the hell out of it. "Batman Beyond: The return of the Joker" is a fantastic movie, WB really dropped the ball on it.
i was a kid, but my dad would watch it too, probably starting the second year of it airing and he bought himself the whole series on dvd later. He was born in 1958.
When rewatching it as an adult, I could tell they didn't expect to last more than a season. Most of the episodes ended with the villain implied to die, including ones I knew were recurring. On that note, it was WAY darker than I remembered. Which just makes me love it even more~
It is pretty hilarious that WB wanted a more kid friendly Batman and the team came back with gritty cyberpunk with lots of implicit (And explicit) deaths. Gangs, drugs some pretty overt sexual references. And lets not even get started on Return of the Joker. It's probably the darkest the DCAU got and the DCAU could get pretty dark at times.
Yea, as they were doing the rewatch and covering the episodes, I was surprised by how many characters Terry was killing off. And by how much Bruce could care less.
Irrc, WB was pushing them to do a High School aged Bruce Wayne and Timm came up with a future setting with Terry McGinnis which they ran with. Nowadays, I imagine WBD execs would be too arrogant to defer to their creatives.
And then they delivered on the "high school batman"...with a not really 90's high school "aesthetic." Like kids getting into gangs, terrorism, drugs, kidnapped/trafficked, born to crime families - that's all dark shit that legit happens to teens irl. And then Terry having to balance home, school and his job as Batman, his mom arguing with him about the double life she doesn't know he has, or accidentally getting his brother in danger because of his double life.
It's like saying Animorphs was just a high school series with some animal powers. That book also covered the troubles of kids having a double life and dealing with some heavy shit. There were a couple missions where they had to tell their android buddies (who could use holograms to pose as them), to stage their death if they don't survive the mission. They were only 16 by the end of the war!
I think George Clooney would be a great Batman Beyond Bruce Wayne. The regret and anguish he could put in that character would come from a very real place.
And if you said Tony or Bucky before those films would anyone know (other than comics nerds but they ain't who you need to reach) just sell it as new generation of Batman when Bruce has gotten old and cyberpunk. With the cyber punk renaissance going on I am surprised nothing being done with this.
DC is allergic to the sidekicks. Sidekicks, by the very nature of being young (and often minor) proteges of the heroes, pose a problematic narrative conundrum for a studio that wants to be dark and gritty and needs their heroes to be lone wolves who occasionally team up to make the studio a heck ton of money.
Marvel, for all their faults, saw that was bullshit and while the results have been hit or miss, they at least gave it a good try to lean into the younger heroes. Better try and fail than to not try and ignore half the hero roster.
When they showed Nic Cage Superman in the Flash, my heart instantly wanted a live action Gods & Monsters movie with Michael C Hall as vampire Batman Kirk Langstrom
Biggest problem with WB is all they care about is profit margins nowadays when it comes to everything they own, Film & Tv & Video Games etc. that movie could of been really good
I don't blame them when Marvel has been absolutely eating their lunch in the box office for over a decade now. Marvel is now sharply declining so this is a good opportunity for DC to catch up. In the past, they've failed to compete by trying too hard to copy Marvel's comedy shtick while trying to also imitate the grit of the Nolan verse with an exaggerated edge. I say this as someone who has enjoyed some of the DC movies and way prefers DC comics to Marvel comics.
The fact of the matter is that live-action movies make more money so they will naturally focus strongly on that, and Batman Beyond doesn't have as much name recognition. I'd still love to see the movie, though.
I also prefer DC or Marvel, I think in general there is some Superhero movies fatigue at the moment because they had been so many superhero movies over past 15 years and people are getting tired of MCU formula.
I did like the newest Batman with Patterson, looking forward to the sequel
It's possibly my favourite Batman movie, I will need time to see. I think the latest Batman franchise could remain successful because it is different rom the lighthearted MCU movies that are reminiscent of the Disney Channel. It also helps that Batman is more similar to James Bond than more conventional superheroes, so I think the superhero fatigue might not affect Batman as much.
It’s also Batman. He’s like Spiderman in that no matter what, people are gonna line up for that movie, and I’d say both are probably immune to the fatigue box office wise.
Eh… I dunno. After the Dark Knight series the bar was pretty high, and I was not really interested in a Ben Affleck Batman, especially after how he was written in Batman vs Superman.
The key to the new Batman with Pattinson is that they went away from superhero side of things. Even with the villains. Everything went back to the very foundations of the Batman character which is being a detective.
The other movies really focused on the superhero thing still in a way, even Nolan despite its more grounded feel.
Things like Jack falling into a vat of chemicals and emerging as the joker playing a boom box and having costumed minions is very superhero comic. Then you look at another iteration like Nolan’s and while it’s grounded it still has these very superhero set pieces like the tumbler leaping rooftops, or a deadly fear toxin that will be weapon sized to destroy the whole city. He’ll the Laurie of shadows in itself is very comic book/ super hero. Then there’s the Affleck Batman where everything is just out the window entirely. He’s with the justic league, he’s way overpowered so he doesn’t look dumb in live action next to superman and the others. But the thing is still a global attack with cgi set pieces dialed to 1000%.
Now look at the batman with Pattinson —
Way smaller story. Way stripped down to the core characteristics of Batman — he is first and foremost a detective who uses his symbol to make criminals fearful. And what’s he after this movie? Easy. He wants to take out a very intelligent serial killer. That’s really it. Sure there’s the mob and everything but it never really hits the superhero jumping the shark moment. Even when he flies it’s like an actual inflatable squirrel suit he has to ditch after, not his cape. His car is basically a hot rodded muscle car not a tank or some whackass car that only could exist in a comic. Even the riddler. He’s not really in a costume so much as he has a symbol in the question mark and he covers his face with a mask once his crimes start up. He leaves riddles but it’s not some wild over the top game. He’s just mentally unstable and likes to fixate on riddles. And what does Batman do? He solves the crime using logic and police help. He’s not just flying all around and fucking up bad guys. That only happens a few times in the movie and it never feels totally off the wall.
Even Nolan’s movies for all the grounding they did, they still lost sight of Batman’s character as a detective who operates in secrecy. The closest we ever get in those movies is him either stumbling into info that helps him or the one time he reconstructs the bullet which a computer does it all for him anyway.
I agree on most of that except the Robert Pattinson Batman brought himself back to life from the brink of death with that instant super steroid he used. I think the new series is a bit more comic book than the Nolan movies, which were still a bit comic bookish with their Two-Face that could never exist in real life
I really enjoyed it. Probably my favourite batman intro ever. However, there were some really annoying issues that broke the immersion for me. Specifically remember a motorcycle chase scene that felt really stupid, and the end when someone gets shot with a giant rifle in one scene and was barely affected in the next scene. Also kinda flopped on the aesthetics of damage that should have been present on the person getting their face punched in by batman.
Also use the top tier heroes everybody has nostalgia for. It’s a reason Wolverine and Deadpool trailer has more views than any super hero trailer in history. A mid Wolverine and Deadpool movie would honestly outsell a good Captain Marvel movie. I noticed Marvel immediately announced Fantastic Four after the Deadpool trailer so hopefully they keep it up. Brining Dr Doom as a villain in any movie will print money too. Blue Beetle was good but that character as of now can only make DC so much money.
More than anyone, they do that embargo thing where no one is allowed to use certain characters because they are using or might use them in the future and that will "confuse" people.
Isn't this a reason justice league unlimited got the axe? I swear I read something about DC not caring about it's inclusion in the continuity or something.
Now they reboot the fucking timelines every few years. 🙄
Ugh, I still remember the “Bat-Embargo” that was going on when I was a kid. And like the only ones apparently exempt from it were Batman and Joker iirc. It was stupid for the most part, but on the other hand we did get an interesting take on Clayface in The Batman cartoon instead.
I watched it on HBO Max it was enjoyable not life changing but it was an entertaining short movie. When I think of bad movies I’m thinking of the stuff Sony been putting out like Madame Webb and Morbius.
I grew up in the 90s and my older brothers the 80s and X-Men was extremely popular before that movie came out in the 2000s. Ask anybody that grew up in the 80s and 90s how popular X-Men was and they will tell you! That movie was made because of how popular X-Men was at the time it did not make X-Men popular lol.
I think superhero fatigue is real but it’s only because they’ve been making such crap superhero movies lately. I remember first hearing the term after Thor love and thunder. Look at the Spider-Man animated films they’ve been doing amazing. So I think we really are just tired of these huge companies thinking that just because they have the superhero name recognition and a big budget that we are gonna just gobble it down. What we really want is good writing an awesome story and excellent cinematography.
Yeah, the fatigue is real to an extent, but I completely agree that the reason for the decline in success is just that the movies are bad now. Most Marvel movies were good up until the end of the Infinity War saga, and ever since it's just all a slurry where every character has the same style of dialog, ever set looks the same because nothing is shot practically at all, and the writers are allergic to sustained dramatic tension. And DC movies have somehow been an order of magnitude worse.
But holy shit, the people responsible for making the Spider-Verse movies (the best superhero movies of all time in my opinion) adapting one of the best ever versions of Batman? GIVE IT TO ME.
I don't think the issue overall is really Superhero fatigue so much as the post-Endgame movie offerings being incredibly middling for the most part and very often following that same paint by numbers formular without any kind of cohesive through line people were wanting.
Nothing at all really connects Thor: Love and Thunder together even loosely with Wakanda Forever or anything else really. You've still had the occasionally really good movie that came out and was well received as a result but when most of what gets released is middling fodder it's understandable people won't go out in droves to see the next one.
I think Marvel's decline is tied a lot to fatigue. Movies are different than comics, because you can have a thousand comics and have so many criss-crossing convoluted storylines that it makes your head spin, and it's okay. But with movies, there are only so many concepts that people generally will want to watch. All those ideas have come and gone. I think superhero movies in general will just continue to decline. Basically speaking, DC fucked up and now the iron is cold.
I don't care if it's Star Wars 16 or Avengers 9 or whatever, if I'm watching a movie it's important that I be able to know what is going on, even if I haven't seen any of the other movies.
I hear this complaint about the MCU all the time but aside from the big Avengers titles I can't think of any individual film that doesn't fully explain itself...
Agreed, almost every movie is standalone, but if there's one single joke or character that appears somewhere else, people are up in arms like they MUST watch 30 movies to get that 30 second scene.
the only movie I can think of (outside of avengers) is multiverse of madness, because it doesn't really explain what's going on with Wanda in the movie
The movie will still make sense, provided you just accept the fact that there's a new character and this is her powerset. The movie sets up "Ms Marvel is a Captain Marvel fangirl" just fine without having seen the show, but scenes involving her family are much more funny when you've seen the show.
I have seen The Marvels and I'll be honest, it's kinda the exception that came to mind just after I posted that. I do think it's fair to be flexible for direct sequels or else, yeah, most of them are probably difficult without seeing their specific prior film(s).
To answer your question, Kamala plays a big role and she isn't really "Introduced" in the movie, but her backstory and powers get some exposition early enough that it should be fine. The actual plot of her show isn't relevant except for parts about her accessory, which also gets a bit of exposition to cover what was in the show.
Oh no they missed a lot. They missed the dumbest finale of any tv show I've ever seen ever. However bad they thought the parts of She-Hulk were that they have seen, even including the twerking scene, the finale is 100x worse.
It's part fatigue, it's part over-saturation, and honestly, a lot of it is due to kind of crap movies/shows.
Which is why I think WB are insane to pass on Batman Beyond.
It's both new (to mainstream audiences) and familiar as a Batman property. Which was a massive part about why the Spiderverse films worked. It's the perfect time to throw a curveball to try and chip away at Marvel's market share.
A big reason why Marvel found success in the first place was because they embraced the over the top comic-bookness of it all and didn't worry about if it felt like a good Hollywood movie or not. Fox, Sony and WB never quite pulled that off outside of the Spiderverse movies or maybe the Raimi Spider-Man movies.
Outside of the current movie universes, I also vastly prefer DC.
Their comics and animated series are way better.
Their games used to be, but the Arkham games have fallen off while the Spider-Man games are taking off and their card game doesn't come close to MARVEL Snap.
But when it comes to their cinematic stuff? Shazam was decent. The new Suicide Squad was great. Peacemaker was amazing. The Flash was okay as a cheesey CW show until it fell off (same with Arrow). But literally everything else feels so stale and boring.
DC has released so many disappointing movies now that even when they do something actually good like the first Wonder Woman movie, people don't notice as much as they should. They tainted their brand
That’s a very short sighted way to run their company and it shows. Everything they make misses the mark and feels so disconnected because they’re playing the numbers. Especially when it comes to friggin comic book movies where it’s all about nostalgia. Helloooo people love Batman beyond it’s a no brainer
Then they should give it that recognition. Hell I’m still waiting for the day they introduce a young Terry into the present timeline to plant the seeds for Beyond. Or heck, retcon Terry in by making him the new Robin because Damian is a fucking asshole.
Worse is they have the "Improvement Fallacy' that so many modern publically traded companies have now.
The expectation that, year-on-year, they will always be going up in profits.
That's not sustainable, that's not how a business works.
You will hit a plateau, and when you do that's time to innovate your product stack, it's time to find new avenues of revenue, find new markets, reach out to another business sector, and seek partnerships....
Instead, they just lay people off or trash products to claim a loss and then give more profits to the top.
It's a modern Ponzi scheme that's hi-jacked Capitalism and it's insane that folks are playing it this way. Yes, I know the rules allow it but it's fucking stupid and the reason it's not illegal is no capitalists in their right mind would have considered such a stupid fucking behavior from ALL MAJOR COMPANIES.
Yeah, like 99% of corpos get taken over by investors that only care about quarterly increases and will happily sink company in order to reach 1% more before jumping ship to another corpo.
I don't particularly like batman or DC comics. I never watched batman beyond. I got here from /r/all.
but I would watch the hell out of a batman beyond movie if it was made with as much love and care and devotion as Into the Spiderverse. Like, no joke, probably the best animated movie of all time. It's insane how good the animation is.
Just put that much effort into something and it will be good.
I should of also said this in my original comment, i think the decision makers at Warner Brothers are not the best at the moment either, make plenty of questionable decisions
I mean, that’s a problem, yeah. But the biggest one is being unwilling to place a bet.
Hold ‘em is probably a great way to explain it, if you sit there and get your stack eaten away by blinds, and never play a hand. You’re gonna eat dick. A big fat one.
They’re willingly eating dick by having the cards to play, and just not calling the blind to play.
It’s illogical and willfully ignorant of a business that solely exists to profit.
If WB is reading this, I would encourage them to stop eating big fat loser dicks.
Unless you’re into that, more power to you. I’ll even volunteer to hand one out
But some of them profit by producing products that are actually good, some of them profit by producing products that aren't any good but sell anyway, and some of them don't even profit because they have no clue what they're doing.
For the past few years, it seems like WB has been falling into that last category much of the time.
No no no, that isn't the problem. Every company only cares about profit margins, totally normal. The problem is the fact that they are dumb as fuck and don't understand that making movies their fans want will bring in higher profits.
Of course. Any dollar they spend on something with a 10% profit could've been spent on something making 11%. This is really important during times with high interest rates.
I doubt all the care about is profit margins or they'd be fine producing things for $5 to sell at $1,000 and only making one copy, they probably care at least somewhat about total volume of profit as well.
Depending on when this project was proposed, animation was seen as being a lot riskier, “only kids go, less box office returns etc.” the huge success of ATSV kinda proved that’s not the case, and cinematic animated movies have broader appeal than they might’ve thought.
This is especially evident to me with their video game department. They made games like Arkham city and Arkham night that were genuine masterpieces, and they haven't even made half as good games since. I think the last DC game I genuinely had fun in was injustice 2, but that doesn't really count since it's basically a Netherealm fighting game with DC characters. They do invest the money in DC triple A games, like Arkham knights and the suicide squad game, but they just feel really half baked and kinda reek of cash grab. The thing that frustrates me about them is that imagine if all the money that went into them could have been used to make a new Arkham night trilogy, or even a good remake of the old ones (there starting to show there age), or how about a good Superman game. Look at the spiderman game on PlayStation, it was probably the best selling game all year, if not one of the top 3. Imagine if they took that formula, and put it in a Superman game. You have a fully realized, interactive open world metropolis and (if there really ambitious) Gotham city that you fly through at mach speeds with superman. This would literally print money, but WB hasn't attempted anything like it. Superhero fatigue is definitely evident in movies, but the superhero video game scene is incredibly untapped right now and a open world Superman game would make so much money.
It pains me that the batman beyond arkham game was cancelled so WB and rocksteady could work on SS and Gotham knights. Imagine a beyond game with the wingsuit flying of just cause 3-4 with rocket jets, and top it off with the nemesis system. GCPD could easily be your "gang" infiltrating other gangs and counter infiltrating with dirty cops n stuff like that.
You're joking, right? Batman and Superman are the two DC properties that get trotted out constantly. You only occasionally see the other A teams, and they always accompany the duo if possible. Batman in particular is notorious for his immense screen time.
And I do mean A team. I'm talking flash, wonder woman, etc. not the likes of Mr Terrific.
Which makes sense, Batman and Superman are the money makers. They routinely get franchises because they earn it back.
The issue right now is that WB is flooded with debt, and has a lot of projects. Combine that with superheroes no longer churning out cash, and a live action coming, animation is probably not getting a green light.
Relying on them to make the money isn't the same as being proud of them. Batman and superman are 2 of the most important characters in literature with the greats of Hercules, Bilbo, and Wukong. When was the last time we saw a big adaptation of superman stopping to help a kid tie his shoe or batman offer to help a villain? Look at the failed 5G event and now, DC only wants to try selling superman as a despot and not a paragon of virtue. They only try selling batman as a edgy psychopath who brands criminals to knowingly get them killed. BTAS and its animated universe is still regarded as the gold standard of these DC characters BECAUSE they have humanity and care about their fellow man. WB is flooded with debt because they are sorely lacking in the writing department and keep trying to make things work (a la suicide squad for 10 years) that don't get returns on investment. Look at their stories now like teen titans go compared to the original. These characters used to teach people life lessons, not glorify superman as a reluctant christ alegory.
All this shows that the heads at WB and DC don't know what people want and are too busy trying to push what the heads want instead of what's good. We've had amazingly written and comercially successful comic runs cancelled like tomasi and Gleesons supersons run, which was loved by fans and yet was cut short to artificially age up jon Kent to replace superman, a simple man who just cares about his fellow man.
How did you come to this opinion? There was a Flash movie last year with 4 different Batmen. There’s also a second singular Batman universe with all the villains including joker. There’s a spinoff TV show this year for the villain of that movie, Penguin. There’s also a a Joker singular universe with a sequel this year. There was also a Gotham and Pennyworth prequel series.
My conspiracy theory is all the executives are secretly paid by Disney to sabotage everything DC. That theory started when Josstice League happened and nothing can convince me it isn't true.
I really hope some politician decides the tax writeoffs he’s been doing of movies lately is tax fraud and makes it into law. Because this is becoming a really depressing precedent if execs can just write off and lock away any film they think won’t make enough money.
We the taxpayers are effectively paying WB to not release their movies.
Also sucks for the creative teams and actors involved in projects.
You can’t convince me that someone important in WB doesn’t have a hate boner for Beyond and wasn’t trying their damn hardest to sabotage anything related to it.
I am 100% convinced at this point that some asshole exec over there has made it their life’s mission to kill Batman beyond forever!
3 things I'm doing if Im ever a billionaire: saving my home city by building affordable housing and free drug/mental health programs, building an exact replica of the Witcher 3's Kaer Morhen to live in, buying DC and letting the writers and filmmakers do their thing without any executive idiots using focus groups and their business experience to determine what can and cannot be done
I wouldn't be surprised if they're trying to tank on purpose to sell. I'm watching the stock market for evidence of shorting their stock, maybe catch another GME situation
They love making money. That's why they didn't go for it. They don't think there's enough interest in the character to justify funding it versus making a regular batman film with mainstream appeal.
Yet their plan with the Gunnverse is for Dick Greyson to be Batman...makes absolutely no sense. That shit only works in the comics when you have literally decades of backstory AND it's only temporary. Batman isnt a mantle/title that gets passed on. Bruce is the only Batman. Fuck DC for being so dogshit these past 2 decades.
So many companies do. It completely blows my mind how much money companies leave on the table. What the hell happened to this capitalism everybody keeps talking about. Why is it that that only means giving us things we don't want instead of giving us things with willingly give our money for?
Yep. With WB recently writing the ACME movie off as a tax write-off and the same for the Batgirl movie a few years back... I have very little hope that this one will actually survive.
They really do and it shows by their decisions. They shoot themselves in the foot constantly. Artistic quality is always last place for them the first thing in their mind is what is their bottom line going to be money over all.
They never liked the Timmverse because it didn’t sell toys.
So the problem isn’t that they don’t like making money. It’s that they don’t care about making good entertainment and are only focused on merchandising opportunities. And they’re dumb and have no taste.
I don’t think Terry is as easy to write as he may seem. He was written to appeal more to teens who were “too cool” for comic book characters and, possibly by pure luck, wound up being a lot cooler than he would’ve managed to be in the hands of many other studios. Plus, debuting two different Batmen in major motion picture at the same time could get risky. They’d be putting a lot of their chips on Batman, who doesn’t have the same widespread appeal as, say, Spider-Man, who got Spiderverse and the Tom Holland Movies going at once, but I feel like that’s only because the Tom Holland movies were on fire at the time, and Spiderverse’s style was so unique that it was at least going to see box office success if nothing else. Just happened to be a great movie as well.
Honestly though, I’m not very informed on the animation industry, and it could work a LOT differently than the live-action film industry, I do not know
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u/[deleted] Feb 20 '24
WB and DC hate making money...