Back in the late 1990s, there was a creative discussion about how to extend the success of Batman: The Animated Series. Rather than just make new episodes of that show, Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and Alan Burnett came up with the concept of setting the series in the future, with the idea being that a new, younger man would take on the mantle of the Dark Knight, and be trained by an elderly Bruce Wayne.
This would, of course, require the creation of a whole new world and series of characters.
“What we tried to avoid was the trap of saying, ‘Here’s Joker 2000; here’s Two-Face 2000’,” explained producer Bruce Timm. “There was actually pressure on us to do that, because the studio thought that would be a way for kids to hook into the show, but we wanted to do something fresh. We wanted to come up with villains who seemed like Batman villains, but were completely new. The closest thing we have to pre-existing characters is an anarchist bike gang called the Jokers, who kind of base their look on the old, long-dead Joker. So we avoided that trap as well as dealing with all the supporting characters. Bruce Wayne could have imported Alfred’s memory into the computer and that’s how Alfred survives, or we could have said Dick Grayson is now this or that. The only person from the old cast who kind of shows up again besides Bruce Wayne is Barbara Gordon, who becomes Commissioner Gordon. That was too neat a concept to pass up.”
For the full article, please click HERE. And if you somehow missed the news about the new Superman project in development, check out the new brief from the Voices from Krypton podcast.