BATMAN BEYOND Movie Starring Michael Keaton Was Reportedly Being Lined Up... Before THE FLASH Crashed

BATMAN BEYOND Movie Starring Michael Keaton Was Reportedly Being Lined Up... Before THE FLASH Crashed BATMAN BEYOND Movie Starring Michael Keaton Was Reportedly Being Lined Up... Before THE FLASH Crashed

The Flash had a very disappointing opening weekend, from which it's unlikely to recover, and it sounds like the movie's underperformance may have dashed all hope of a Batman Beyond live-action film.

News
By MarkCassidy - Jun 21, 2023 07:06 AM EST
Filed Under: The Flash

Prepare to be even more disappointed about The Flash's poor box office debut!

Shortly after it was announced that James Gunn and Peter Safran were taking over as co-heads of the newly established DC Studios, we heard that Christina Hodson (The Flash, Birds of Prey) had been working on a treatment for a live-action Batman Beyond movie.

The project was said to have been shelved when the decision was made to reboot (or semi-reboot) the franchise with the DCU, but it seems there may have still been plans to get the film into production... before The Flash crashed and burned!

During the last episode of the Fatman on Batman podcast, Kevin Smith revealed that he'd heard from the son of Michael Uslan, Executive Producer on the Batman movies since Tim Burton's 1989 original, that Warner Bros./DC Studios were planning to move forward with a Batman Beyond film starring Michael Keaton if The Flash proved to be successful enough at the box office.

Of course, short of a dramatic turnaround, The Flash does not look set for a successful run in theaters, so we can probably forget about a Batman Beyond live-action adaptation anytime soon. However, we did recently hear about a Daniel Casey-penned script for an animated take that was supposedly being developed as Warner Bros.' answer to Sony's Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse franchise.

That project also stalled after the SCU slate announcement, but could still see the light of day.

The Batman Beyond animated series was created and developed by Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Alan Burnett, and ran from 1999 to 2001 on Kids' WB. The story focused on a teenaged Batman (Terry McGinnis) in a futuristic Gotham City under the tutelage of an elderly Bruce Wayne.

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Mercwitham0uth - 6/21/2023, 7:05 AM
Sacrifices must be made.
bobevanz - 6/21/2023, 8:19 AM
@Mercwitham0uth - found the Bale simp lol
dagenspear - 6/21/2023, 9:25 AM
@bobevanz - I don't see a Bale mention in the post I'm looking at.
Mercwitham0uth - 6/21/2023, 11:43 AM
@bobevanz - I honestly don't care about Bale. Nice try though.
JohnPain - 6/21/2023, 7:08 AM


Oops; should’ve just made Batman Beyond with Keaton in the first place.
Asterisk - 6/21/2023, 7:10 AM
@JohnPain - I mean at this point they should just forget they brought him back in Flash, pretend like it never happened, and make Batman Beyond anyways
Vigor - 6/21/2023, 7:22 AM
@Asterisk - this
SethBullock - 6/21/2023, 7:51 AM
@JohnPain - It's so obvious that would have been the best option... 😠😡🤬

Using Keaton on this Flash movie made zero sense anyway. 🤦‍♂️
Asterisk - 6/21/2023, 7:09 AM
Why would the fate of a Batman Beyond movie be up to this disaster of a movie? What does it even have to do with it?
Asterisk - 6/21/2023, 7:10 AM
@Asterisk - also Batman Beyond should just be animated like Spider Verse js
Havenless - 6/21/2023, 7:19 AM
@Asterisk - Q rating is is real thing in BO terms
Dabs - 6/21/2023, 7:30 AM
@Asterisk - ooh animated Batman Beyond. Now that sounds promising.
dragon316 - 6/21/2023, 7:47 AM
@Asterisk - people who will see animated movie people on this site maybe little kids not new fans who don’t watch cartoons
bobevanz - 6/21/2023, 8:20 AM
@Asterisk - yeah there's no doubt that his Batman Beyond movie would make bank
ObserverIO - 6/21/2023, 8:39 AM
@Asterisk - We have an animated movie already. The whole point is to do a live action big budget movie.
ObserverIO - 6/21/2023, 8:41 AM
@bobevanz - As long as it doesn't feature Ezra Miller or take place in the DCEU.
dagenspear - 6/21/2023, 9:24 AM
@dragon316 - Cartoons are seen by a lot of people.
Urubrodi - 6/21/2023, 7:09 AM
Apart from having Keaton, they are such different stories, there shouldn't be a need for them to be dependent on each other. Such a shame, cause Batman Beyond could be so great in live-action.
Doomsday8888 - 6/21/2023, 7:13 AM
It is what it is.
dagenspear - 6/21/2023, 9:23 AM
@Doomsday8888 - LORD willing.
AquaClunge - 6/21/2023, 7:16 AM
Gunn and his ego again.

This could have been a DC black label project and coexisted with Gunns DCU
FireandBlood - 6/21/2023, 7:30 AM
@DaScarletClunge - It’ll all backfire on him when Superman: The Authority doesn’t hit, watch. People forget he short changed half his main cast and other cosmic characters like Warlock and the Nova Corp in his Guardians movies. He’s no world builder.
CorndogBurglar - 6/21/2023, 7:36 AM
@PlusUltra - I have faith in Gunn.....but I will say that some of these choices seem weird. Like The Authority. I'm a 41 year old comic reader and have been reading since I was about 5. I have no idea who The Authority are.

Marvel has proven that doesn't always matter, but DC has struggled with their movies. I'm not sure it's smart to make that movie as one of their first in a new universe.
FireandBlood - 6/21/2023, 7:44 AM
@CorndogBurglar - It’s one thing doing an Authority movie, but setting it up in a Superman reboot is red flags. Whether it’s Gunn or Snyder, nobody seems to be interested in actually making a Superman movie about Superman.
Urubrodi - 6/21/2023, 8:02 AM
@PlusUltra - The thing is that it shouldn't even be that complicated. Use Brainiac for once. I don't get what DC seems to have against Brainiac. It seems that Superman only has 2 villains, either Lex or Zod.
ObserverIO - 6/21/2023, 8:43 AM
@CorndogBurglar - I was a huge fan of The Authority when it first hit and even I think it's not a smart move to throw them in the first movie.
ShimmyShimmyYA - 6/21/2023, 8:58 AM
@ObserverIO - it doesn’t make sense at all

There’s no Justice league yet to contrast them against the authority
CorndogBurglar - 6/21/2023, 9:59 AM
@PlusUltra - Yep. Totally agree.
DanFlashesShirt - 6/21/2023, 5:04 PM
@DaScarletClunge - jesus ya’ll are so ready to hate on James Gunn… sorry he doesn’t wanna continue whatever weird shitty continuity that was the result of 3-4 different directions by different people for DC.

Flash was garbage btw, glad you enjoyed it though. You should go see it again to bring it up to $71,000,015 worldwide.
AquaClunge - 6/21/2023, 11:37 PM
@DanFlashesShirt - Da fúçk you talking about? I didn't think the flash was that good, however will judge Peado tweet Gunn on actions he's already taken at DC
He seems to be cancelling everything to suit his ego and I ain't with it.
WarMonkey - 6/21/2023, 7:17 AM
Actually the cancelled Batgirl movie WAS supposed to be their Batman Beyond movie. It was going to have older Batman played by Keaton playing the role he did for Terry McGuinness. Then the plan was to have Batgirl become the universe's only Bat hero and then the Flash movie was supposed to reboot the universe and remove Superman who would be replaced by Supergirl. They were moving towards an all-female Trinity leading the DCU till the plans fell apart when Zaslov came in.
TempleRod - 6/21/2023, 7:27 AM
@WarMonkey - I doubt it was Batgirl as the 'only Bat Hero"
She would've been the mantle holder and Batman would be in it too.
WarMonkey - 6/21/2023, 7:40 AM
@TempleRod - No, that was literally the plan. It was leaked a long time ago. They were trying to do their own version of an all female A-Force, copying Marvel again.
ObserverIO - 6/21/2023, 8:47 AM
@WarMonkey - The fans complained about it at the time, so WB reacted by putting an second film called Batman Beyond into production with Terry McGinnis. Problem was, it was set in the present day. Terry McGinnis and Batgirl would have been side by side in the Justice League. This would have been a terrible [frick]ed up WB Pictures version of Batman Beyond.
dagenspear - 6/21/2023, 9:23 AM
@ObserverIO - I think that sounds, to me, like an assumption. Has that been said by the studio or whatever?
ObserverIO - 6/21/2023, 1:02 PM
@dagenspear - No, it is just an assumption. But the fans did complain and then it turns out they were suddenly planning the Terry McGinnis version, when they were originally selling Batgirl as their version of Batman Beyond (as WarMonkey points out). So it probably was a reaction to the fans, to some degree.
Forthas - 6/21/2023, 7:20 AM

MahN166A - 6/21/2023, 7:21 AM
I mean….
A Batman Beyond film is something fans have been clamoring for, for decades.
Really makes no difference if The Flash makes the box office or not.

Give us Batman Beyond.
That said, I don’t trust how DC/WB would go about it.

If the futuristic aesthetic of Neo Gotham is anywhere near as good as what we saw in films like The Fifth Element, I think that would be a good starting point to build hope in the film.
Matador - 6/21/2023, 8:10 AM
@MahN166A - We all know they would just muck that up and would look like a Schumacher world.

abd00bie - 6/21/2023, 8:45 AM
@Matador - Bladerunner 2049/Ghost in the shell aethetics please
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