'Batman: Caped Crusader’: Animated Series From Bruce Timm, J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves
 

Batman: Caped Crusader, an animated series from executive producers Bruce Timm, J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves, received a straight to series order from HBO Max and Cartoon Network.

The reimagining of the Batman mythology is produced by Warner Bros. Animation, Bad Robot Productions and 6th & Idaho and marks Batman: The Animated series producer Timm’s return to Batman in animated episodic series. The Animated SEries. Tom Ascheim, President, Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics (GKYAC) and Sam Register, President, Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) and Cartoon Network Studios (CNS), unveiled the series on Wednesday.

“It is always fun to feed the insatiable appetite fans have for all things Batman. Batman: Caped Crusader will entertain first time and die-hard fans alike and, with such an impressive creative team in place, we know we have another future Batman classic in the making,” Ascheim said.

Register added: “Batman: The Animated Series was a masterpiece that shaped the perception of the character for an entire generation of fans. It is in that spirit that we are bringing together three master storytellers in J.J., Matt and Bruce – each with their own intuitive understanding and affection for the character – to create a new series that will continue in the same groundbreaking legacy.”

Executive Producers Bruce Timm, J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves said: “We are beyond excited to be working together to bring this character back, to tell engrossing new stories in Gotham City. The series will be thrilling, cinematic and evocative of Batman’s noir roots, while diving deeper into the psychology of these iconic characters. We cannot wait to share this new world.”

https://deadline.com/2021/05/batman-...rk-1234759890/

I don't want to get my hopes up but that promotional art is everything.

This must be the Batman:TAS revival that was rumored recently. I'm glad they are making a new show in the same vein, instead of revisiting the well, which had already sort of run dry, despite how great that show is.

Looks like the rumors of B:TAS getting a revival were fake then if we're getting this new series instead. A bit of a pity, to be honest, but this show could be good. Bruce Timm working on this basically kills any chance of a B:TAS revival.

That Batman design by Timm is just brilliant. Even the simple curve of the shoulder has me drooling.

I never really like it when they make Batman's "ears" so big or long, it always looks weird to me.

That's understandable.

I can go both ways with the ears. The short ones work for Miller's brutish, stocky Batman, but the long ears bring a sense of fantasy along with them, which I really like.
It sort of elevates the character into looking a bit more mythical and a bit less military. For a stylized show like this seems to be, I love the choice.

The promo art sort of reminds me of that Fantasia sequence with the giant demon coming out of the mountain, which begs the question: who will be composer for this? No mention of Danny Elfman, which is okay, if they get someone else great.

The problem is the idea of a revival is based on the last season, 'the new Adventures' instead of my preferred and beloved first 3 seasons. If it is revived it needs to be based on the first three seasons. I love the designs and characters. I don't have interest in throwing in characters who don't fit the mold of the series.

That being said, this artwork definitely evokes the 1939 look. I am curious what the rest of the cast will look like. I am hoping that Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon make an appearance on a reoccurring basis, but limited to just them as far as costumed Bat Family. If its just Bruce as Batman fighting classic Bat Rogues then its fine too.

Well either way, it's obvious B:TAS isn't being revived now with Bruce Timm working on this new reboot.

I think people are going to want Kevin Smith's head on a platter for getting peoples hopes up.

I like big ears on batman, it's been 8 years since Batman got his own cartoon, so it's overdue. Then again Batman has been so overplayed despite not having his own show the last decade that I've lost a lot of interest in the character, there's literally nothing new they ever do with Batman, always the same stories.

Unsure how I feel about Bruce Timm, I love the guy but if it's a new take on Batman why have him? If it was a revival of BTAS I'd totally be on board but I'm not a huge fan of Bruce Timm's Batman DCU animated movies because they feel like BTAS but also don't and it makes for a weird mix that doesn't benefit the universe. I'm guessing this would feel similar..

no doubt the last few semi revivals of BTAS were disappointing, but there is definitely enough in BTAS to be able to do a revival either set during BTAS time or even after.
I'm all for a more noir batman show but if timm is attached it'll feel like btas without it being btas and it'll just never be its own thing. I'd want a new show runner or timm doing btas

He could have simply heard that this show was in the pipeline and that Timm was involved, and assumed it was Batman TAS.

That's what likely happened, but the fact that he made it sound like a B:TAS revival rather than just Bruce Timm working on a new Batman cartoon got peoples hopes up and the news spread all around the internet for about a year.

I guess the DCAU is officially dead. We're in 2021 now and with Kevin Conroy getting up there in the years this did feel like the one last chance for B:TAS to have another show but I guess that's dead and buried now.

I think most people will be excited, as opposed to angry at Kevin Smith.

There are enough ingredients here to tie it to the 90's animated series. It was never going to be exactly the same thing anyway, especially given that the show itself essentially morphed away from what people remember it most for.

Here we have Bruce Timm designs, a focus on noir storytelling, and just look at that artwork - it maintains the same, classy Fletcher-Superman style that originally inspired B:TAS.

B:TAS is my favorite animated superhero show, easily, but I'm more excited about this then I would be having B:TAS "return".

You don't say?!:lol:

It's a good thing I just saw the news on Superman finally getting another animated series, otherwise I would have groaned at "more Batman."

I'm a bit uneasy with Bruce Timm involved given his recent work including the DC animated movies. Matt Reeves being involved though makes me wonder if this will have a similar style or tone as his upcoming film. Pointy earred Batman is fine with me, it gives a more devilish look to him.

I feel like this is going to be the first comic book cartoon to actually look beautiful in forever. That's what has me most excited. The idea that maybe we can get back to cartoons doing some quality cartooning.

This is the type of care I wish TMNT could get.:tcry:

Is that the thing we thought would be a Batman TAS continuation? I hope not.

And you know,a reboot by Jar Jar Abrams; that always ends well.

I have the original animated series, I am good.

But we can assume it will have a budget due to the names involved, and the pedigree of the talent involved + the way they are talking about the show as a successor to the spirit of B:TAS and it's stylized noir storytelling implies the animation will be better than the typical DC direct-to-dvd. Just looking at the promo art gives an impression of prestige, Fletcher-esque animation.

I think so at least.

Hey, if everyone were this easy to please, we'd never need anything new.

There is no B:TAS continuation, this was the Batman cartoon Bruce Timm was working on.

Oh, I'll definitely be disappointed if it doesn't look any more visually interesting than their average direct-to-dvd or Saturday morning cartoon, but no, I don't see that happening. They have big names producing and are calling it a successor to Batman: The Animated Series. They are using this as a push for HBO MAX, which is desperate right now. I think signs point to this being a premium product.

Looks interesting. We'll see. The '39-inspired visual is intriguing, even though it's not my preference.

"I get to do what I want this time"-Bruce Timm.

"Modern sensibility, Inclusive, Diverse"

Red flags already

I'm cautiously optimistic, BT has never stopped working on Batman so his ideas are a bit tired, all the DC Animated movies he's worked on have never been as good as BTAS despite being aimed at adults. Paul Dini and Dwayne McDuffie (RIP) are also big reasons the DCAU was as good as it was, not Timm alone. The setting of the show and what they describe is a complete rehash of the BTAS and the "new" elements of Batman slowly growing was exactly what The Batman cartoon from 2004 did already as well so all the "new" things he is describing were already done on BTAS or The Batman.

However It's still bruce timm though and even when he does a bad job he still does a decent job and the 1940s setting for "early" batman even if we've seen it done before is still the best setting for Batman. So yeah I think it'll likely be a good show, it just won't feel groundbreaking.

I do think B.T. works better with restriction, the DCU Animated movies are a test to that. The modern sensibility likely means no sexy stuff which Timm loves to sneak in, hopefully he will be able to. I don't mind a diverse cast but if they make Gordon and catwoman black like in the Reeve's movies (which is very likely given it's meant to coast off the marketing of that movie like BTAS did with Batman Returns), it might be the nail that seals the deal in barbara/selina ever being white again. I'm guessing all of that will be forced by the studio and not necessarily BT, but we'll see. BTAS had a mutant Penguin and a blonde selina kyle and we still got an amazing show.

All the DC animated films Timm has worked on have been a mixed bag, the adult content is awful, and he has some weird takes.

It does seem they want this Batman cartoon to be THE definitive Batman cartoon for the 2020 generation, much like B:TAS was for the 90's and early 2000's. Given both The Batman and Beware the Batman barely made an impact, it'll be interesting to see a new mainstream Batman cartoon again. Brave and the Bold was more of a superhero teamup show, so it stood out besides based on the 50's incarnations of most characters.

You know, it's kinda hard to believe we haven't even had a Batman solo cartoon in over 10 years. Feels longer than that because most people aren't even aware Beware the Batman even existed given it got canceled in 1 season and was done in CG.

People don't tend to care because there is no shortage of Batman cartoons. They're just not the Saturday morning type.

Saturday morning cartoons have been dead for 20 years, I think we just haven't gotten a batman cartoon because the last decade action shows died so there was no need for another batman cartoon. I think Marvel had like 10 different failed attempts and 3 of those being spider-man cartoons that all died without making much of an impact while adventure time, regular show and all those new shows for a new generation became hits.

Beware the Batman failed but so did Young Justice which featured Batman and also Justice League Action which also heavily featured Batman. There was also no new batman movie to promote a new cartoon, last solo batman movie was The Dark Knight Rises.

I also don't think The Batman was a failure, it had 5 seasons (65 episodes) which was an extra season than most KidsWB shows would get, this was at a time when Saturday morning cartoons were dead and only anime Pokemon clones were popular. But it is underrated and "forgotten" in a similar way that TMNT 2k3 was. I personally loved The Batman, it was a fresh take.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/1280c969...co1_r1_400.gif

The Batman got 5 seasons but it feels like nobody cares for most of it or remembers it, and Season 4 was actually really good. What's also strange is all the kids who grew up with it in the early 2000's should be nostalgic for it, but I don't see any young 20 year olds nostalgic for The Batman at all.

The show came out around 2003 meaning any kid who grew up with it would now be in their early/mid 20's but I see no nostalgia for it at all. It's very strange, obviously some kids were watching to keep it on the air for 5 years.

The Batman is largely forgotten because the western animation superfans who ran big websites at the time like Toonzone and other such places absolutely hated it and were entirely loyal to Bruce Timm and the DCAU, so there would be loads of websites, essays, etc devoted to singing their praises and demonising 'Batty Chan Adventures', chasing away any fans of it and making sure new ones couldn't be created. Around the same time, the DCAU was also being released on DVD for the first time.

It also didn't help that the final few seasons of Justice League Unlimited were still airing while The Batman was striving to find it's audience, it's writing wasn't always the best compared to the consistency of JLU. It also could use all of the Bat villains where as JLU could not after a while, so that also soured fanboy opinion on it.

I agree, it got better, with Greg Wiesman chipping in a bit, and season four being the one with the best writing, but the damage was done.

I kind of liked the Batman vs Dracula movie at the time. Idk if I still would.

From the sounds of the interview this show won't be in CG like people were fearing. Sounds like a regular cartoon.

Yeah, The Batman got a lot of hate from ToonZone because it cancelled any hope they had for a new DCAU batman revival. It was a great show if you ignore most of the penguin and Joker episodes which were like a third of each season. It's similar to TMNT 2k3 that doesn't get nostalgia either except from the hardcore fans.

Why does Bruce Timm look like max shreck of Batman Returns now? :lol:

I'm sure BT will be able to push the limits of the current liberal censorship, in the 90s he was able to sneak in violence and sexyness in the conservative censorship era of cartoons.

I gave "The Batman" a shot when it was new but I genuinely didn't care too much about it. I do plan to revisit it some day to see what I think now, but the urgency is low. Some stuff I REALLY did not like. That Joker, man... ugh.

It did have a surprisingly long run, though. Considering that anecdotally I've almost never spoken to anyone outside of the internet who claims to have even seen it. If it comes up in conversation at all, it's "that Batman cartoon that was on for like, a few episodes, and they did that Dracula movie." It seems like that movie is what most people remember about it, which is probably because I remember it being aired in heavy rotation back in the day. I saw the movie a couple of times simply because it aired often on weekend afternoons during times when nothing else was on, so it was pretty hard to avoid it. And I still barely remember it at all.

People are generally pretty shocked when you mention it ran for five whole seasons. Definitely seems like the most "forgotten" Batman show by a mile, moreso even than "Beware The Batman" since that show didn't have much of a run to begin with. For a show to be forgotten after one short season is no big deal. For a show to run for FIVE seasons and have nobody remember it... well, that raises all kinds of questions.

Of course, the 4Kids TMNT cartoon had a similar problem. :lol: That whole era must've just been really weird for cartoons, I guess.

Well since we aren't getting any new news on the new show and I feel like geeking out on The Batman 2004 I'll talk a little bit more about it. It's definitely a flawed show but it still has so much great Batman content. It is a very different show from BTAS so comparing it to it is not fair, it's more a show about Batman growing as a character and relationships than its villains (at least in the beginning). It's more action oriented and surprisingly very dark.

Each season has like 3 episodes dedicated to the Joker and 3 for the Penguin so half of each season is just those characters. Penguin episode are mostly bad but there are a few good ones. Joker episodes can go either way between goofy "joke" episodes or outright demented. I loved the "blanka" joker look they went with, this joker is just insane, he is the only media version of the character where he feels like he can do anything as long as he is having fun, he doesn't care about anything really, just creating chaos.

The other villain episodes fall into the range of forgettable or better than BTAS tier. No in between there, the forgettable episodes have more to do that the episodes are focused on Bruce/Batman and the villain is only there to move the plot so they're not necessarily bad episodes just not about the villains really. When they do focus on the villains they're great.

The show especially shines in the story arcs and they always nailed it. the original characters of the show were all excellent, Ellen Yin, Ethan, Everywhere man. And they successfully reinterpreted some villains better than BTAS like Catwoman, Clayface. Some other villains get radical interpretations so while not better they stand on their own like Riddler and Scarface. They first animated certain villains like Black Mask and did a good job. Even the most criticized villain Mr. Freeze who they made into a common thug (his original comic origin), they redeemed him in a future episode where we se what he becomes.

The movie gets a lot of love but I don't like it, I find it silly that Dracula exists in the DC universe. Season 5 is also boring, every episode is a team up episode with a DC superhero, so it's no longer a batman show and the final episode is just a rehash of the season 4 finale. At least in this version Superman and Batman start out as friends instead of enemies like most modern interpretations.

Season 1 is a mixed bag but it's my favorite because of the season finale. Season 2 continues the same idea of a young Batman it's a more solid but it doesn't have a great twist at the end. Season 3 gets rid of some of the characters that made the first two seasons great which sucks but the batgirl story arc is pretty good and she's one of my favorite takes on Barbara. Season 4 is the favorite for most but it's also because it's the only season that feels more like a clone of BTAS, which is good because BTAS is good but bad because it lost some of its uniqueness.

This show is said to evoke a style similar to this short:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFwOS2R9o_8

With color, of course.

I grew up with The Batman and even though I ultimately preferred Batman: The Animated Series, I still enjoy what The Batman brought to the table. It was definitely more of a superhero show with an emphasis on action, which was apparent in the way both Joker and Penguin were handled, but that's also what made it fun.

The action in The Batman still looks amazing til this day. I really didn't like what they did to Joker with his jester-like hair, monkeyish physique, and bare feet, but oddly, I was able to get over it. It's not something I'd ever like to see be done again with the character, but within the show's context, sure, it was fine.

There were lots of standout episodes and arcs as well, especially in season 4 which was just an all around solid season of Batman. It even had interesting takes on villains like Clayface, Solomon Grundy, and Riddler and gave the spotlight to lesser known villains like the Ventriloquist and Black Mask.

I also really enjoyed this show's version of Batgirl and Robin, who just had excellent chemistry and vastly improved the show with their presence, which is a big part of why I think season 4 was so good. Even Alfred was great in this show and was given a lot more to do than in The Animated Series and is probably even my favorite interpretation of the character.

It was a shame they couldn't use characters like Two-Face, Scarecrow, and Ra's Al Ghul due to the Nolan films as it would have been interesting to see what the show would have done with them. I almost feel like Ethan Bennett ended up taking the place of Harvey Dent with the way things went with him.

I definitely have nostalgia for this show and I've seen it pop up here and there recently, so I'm definitely not alone there. It's just never gonna be as mainstream as Batman: The Animated Series or as relevant as anything that has and will come after as it came out before a time when nerdy stuff was trendy with all the 30-40 year olds who grew up in the early 80s to mid 90s when commercialism was becoming a huge part of pop culture.

I'm still waiting for that The Batman Complete Series blu-ray though. I have all the seasons on DVD from way back when, and while I can understand how Teen Titans got a complete blu-ray release first, Legion of Superheroes had less of a reason to get one before The Batman. But WB seems pretty good about releasing their animated content on blu-ray, so hopefully we don't have to wait too much longer.

We're all guilty of it to some degree, but objectively it is a shame that people get so wedded to one version of a thing that it damns all future iterations from ever reaching true success.

Like, will ANY Batman cartoon ever achieve the success and popularity of Batman: TAS? Nah, probably not. Is that fair? Nah, probably not. It's kinda weird that 50 years from now, when there will undoubtedly have been multiple Batman cartoons that were either better-made on a technical level, more comics-accurate, whatever... you just know that people will STILL be saying "Batman: TAS was the greatest of all time, dawg!"

I mean, it's undoubtedly a great show. It's my personal favorite Batman cartoon by a mile. But removing one's personal preferences from the conversation... yeah, it's very, very weird that people don't even want to "play fair" whenever a new cartoon comes along, and they'd rather sing the praises of something three decades old.

Again, we all do it. I do it, I'm aware I do it, so nobody "@" me about it. I'm just thinking out loud and trying to make a point.

Ed Brubaker has been revealed as head writer, and will be Timm's 'right hand man'

The first season will also consist of ten episodes

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv...er-1235071480/

Only 10 ep seasons? Odd since Young Justice still has 26 episode seasons and that debuts on HBO.

Ah well, maybe all 10 eps will be high quality and lack any filler.

Exactly. I’m happy to hear of the low episode count. Don’t pump these out like a factory. Again, I’m expecting a premium quality cartoon out of this, not some Saturday morning fare.

Define 'premium quality", because a lot of Saturday morning shows of the last few decades are considered that.