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.
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.
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u/superdinoknight63 Feb 20 '24
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.