For years, fans have been clamoring for some kind of revival of Batman Beyond on the big screen, either in live-action or animation. The animated series, which turns 25 this year, retains a loyal following. DC Comics has even incorporated its characters and concepts into the comics. Well, a creative from Sony’s Spider-Verse films, along with writer/artist Patrick Harpin, actually did pitch a Batman Beyond animated film months ago and some of the gorgeous concept art is online. Spider-Verse production designer Yukhi Demers shared some of that art for the pitch via Twitter. In it, you can see Batman fighting off his adversary Inque. He’s hoping that it gets some traction and maybe the powers-that-be decide it’s worth a go.
In his post Demers said, “Before we pitched, they warned us, ‘there is absolutely no way we can do a 𝘉𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 movie’, but they loved our enthusiasm. We pitched the outline for the entire film, and what started as a ‘never’ turned into a ‘maybe’. In the time since, we’ve been pitching our way up the company hoping to get to James Gunn. This means it never made it to the proper offices of DC Studios. But there’s no way Gunn doesn’t see this now, and see the intense enthusiasm for such a project. Especially if it’s coming from the people behind Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse.“
Batman Beyond takes place in a relatively near future, where Gotham City has become Neo-Gotham, a futuristic amalgam of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles and Akira’s Neo-Tokyo. Average Gotham teenager Terry McGinnis loses his father to a violent crime, and falls under the mentorship of an elder Bruce Wayne. Long retired from crime-fighting, Wayne trains Terry to be the new Batman, wearing a high-tech futuristic suit.
While we’ve long clamored for a live-action Batman Beyond with Michael Keaton as the elder Wayne. However, we’d take the very same concept in animation. Hopefully, seeing these Batman Beyond animated art images alerts someone at DC Studios this chance is too good to pass up.
