Batman Beyond (also known as Batman of the Future in Europe) is an American animated cyberpunk superhero television series based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, and serving as the sequel to both and The New Batman Adventures. Created and developed by Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Alan Burnett and produced by Warner Bros. Television Animation, the series began airing on January 10, 1999; in the United Kingdom, it began airing on September 4, 2000.
The series follows the exploits of teenager Terry McGinnis, who becomes the new Batman for the city of Gotham in the near future. Terry is aided and mentored by the retired Batman, Bruce Wayne, as he faces a variety of criminals including several new supervillains. Despite being conceived as a kid-friendly Batman series by Warner Bros. Animation, it ended up being darker than its predecessor Batman: The Animated Series,Batman Beyond: Making of (DVD) yet went on to receive critical acclaim and gained a cult following.
Batman Beyond ran for three seasons, concluding with a direct-to-video feature film, . The decision to end production on the series came due to Warner Bros. Animation opting to favor pushing forward production for the Justice League animated series, though with Batman Beyond featuring crossovers with additional shows in the DC Animated Universe.
Twenty years later, Bruce lives alone in Wayne Manor with only the company of his Doberman Ace. One-night, teenage Terry McGinnis is chased by thugs onto the lawn of Wayne Manor, and he and Bruce fight them together, but Bruce has another heart attack shortly afterwards. Terry takes Bruce inside and takes care of him. Exploring the mansion, Terry discovers the Batcave and asks Bruce to let him take up his mantle.
Terry's decision to become Batman stems from sharing a similar origin story to Bruce, in that his father, Warren McGinnis, is murdered after learning of an illegal weapons project being conducted at Wayne-Powers. Bruce grants Terry a high-tech Batsuit he made shortly before his retirement, granting him increased strength and agility, flight capabilities, stealth, and enhanced sensor systems, with Bruce allowing him to use it not only to get justice for his father's murder, but also to prevent the illegal weapon being manufactured being sold to a foreign power. His actions lead to Bruce accepting him as the new Batman and providing him cover for his work under the pretense of Terry doing part-time work for him outside of school hours, with the two having moments where they differ in methods but also gaining respect for each other's work as Batman.
Terry mainly lives with his remaining family - his mother Mary, who was divorced from Warren around the time of his death; and his brother Matt - while dating fellow student Dana Tan, though his life as Batman creates complications to their relationship. Alongside Bruce, Terry is aided in his life by Max Gibson, a close friend and highly intelligent student who uncovers his secret several weeks after he becomes Batman, serving in a role similar to Alfred Pennyworth. Apart from Max, Terry's role as Batman is also known to Barbara Gordon, who aided Bruce as Batgirl before parting ways with him to become the Gotham City's Police Department's new police commissioner following her father's death. Like Bruce, Terry develops his own rogues gallery amongst the criminals he brings to justice, and also faces some of Bruce's own enemies from his time as the Dark Knight.
Justice League Unlimited revisited the Batman Beyond world twice in 2005. The first was in "The Once and Future Thing" (Part 2), which featured Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern transported 50 years into the future to stop a time-travelling villain with the help of the future Justice League (Batman II, Static, and Warhawk).
The second time was meant to be the de facto series finale for Batman Beyond: the episode "Epilogue" reveals that Bruce Wayne is Terry McGinnis's biological father. The story, set 15 years after Batman Beyond, centers on Terry (now in his early 30s) tracking down an elderly Amanda Waller. She explains through flashbacks that, even though she grew to trust and respect Batman, she was aware of him aging, getting slower, and getting weaker, thus accepting the idea of either Bruce retiring or being killed at some point. Finding the idea of a world without Batman unacceptable, Waller used her Project Cadmus connections to gather the technology for "Project Batman Beyond", whose goal was to physically create a new Batman, starting with a secretly collected sample of Bruce Wayne's DNA. Some years after Bruce retired, Waller found a young Neo-Gotham couple—the McGinnises—with psychological profiles nearly identical to those of Bruce's parents and gave Warren McGinnis a Nanotechnology solution to rewrite his Reproduction material with that of Bruce. The eventual result was his wife Mary McGinnis giving birth to Terry, a child sharing the genetic traits of his mother and Bruce Wayne. When Terry was eight years old, Waller employed an elderly Andrea Beaumont in her Phantasm alias as an assassin to kill Terry's family, hoping the trauma would put him on the path to becoming Batman. However, Beaumont could not commit the act, arguing that she would be doing something against what Bruce stood for. Waller eventually conceded that Beaumont had been right and abolished the project altogether. Eight years afterward, Warren would be murdered because of Derek Powers, and Terry would meet Bruce by happenstance—resulting in Terry becoming Batman's successor. Waller concludes by reminding Terry that he is Bruce's son, not his clone, and that, despite the circumstances of his existence, he still has free will to live out his own life; Although not his clone she later tells Terry how he is not even close to as smart as Bruce Wayne but he does have his heart. Terry comes to terms with his revelations, and continues in being Batman. With a new sense of purpose, Terry plans to propose to Dana, while continuing his life of crimefighting.
Den of Geek, when listing the best episodes of the series, wrote that "Batman Beyond's first year on the air represents the show at its most realized form. It's the only season of the show that's written at the same level of quality as Batman: The Animated Series. Not to say that later seasons don't have their moments, but it seemed like the writers approached Beyond as a Saturday morning cartoon during seasons two and three, whereas during season one, they most certainly did not." Creator Bruce Timm has stated Batman Beyond is the most uneven series of the main DC Animated Universe shows, particular in regard to the latter two seasons. Forum post Greg Weisman commented that while the series was well made, it felt more like a Spider-Man series and much less like Batman. Batman Beyond was cited by actor Jacob Bertrand, who voice-acted Batmobile in Batwheels, as his introduction to the Batman franchise.
Special features: creators' commentary on two key episodes; Inside Batman Beyond : Meet the Series' Creators; Music of the Knight: Enjoy Score-Only Versions of Key Scenes. |
Special features: creators' commentary on two key episodes; Inside Batman Beyond : The Panel – In-Depth Dialogue with the Show's Creators. DVD art designed by Jesse Stagg at RDI. |
Special features: Inside Batman Beyond; featurettes on four episodes by producers, directors and Will Friedle. DVD art designed by Jesse Stagg at RDI. |
Special features: creator commentaries, season retrospectives, bonus 9th disc with 95 minutes of new special features, Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics documentary and three all-new, all-revealing featurettes. |
Commentary by the filmmakers*; behind-the-scenes documentary; deleted scenes; animation tests; music video Crash by Mephisto Odyssey featuring Static-X; animated character bios; interactive menus; production notes; trailers; scene access; subtitles: English and French. |
Commentary by the filmmakers*; behind-the-scenes documentary; deleted scenes; animation tests; music video Crash by Mephisto Odyssey featuring Static-X; animated character bios; interactive menus; production notes; trailers; scene access; subtitles: English and French. |
Compilation of the (by production order, not by air date) of the series: "Rebirth" (Parts 1 and 2), "Golem", "Dead Man's Hand", "Meltdown", and "The Winning Edge" |
Contains the episodes: "Golem", "Heroes", "Spellbound", "Shriek", "Disappearing Inque", and "Hooked Up", plus all of the episodes as one long movie |
Two Batman Beyond books for young readers were released on November 14, 2000: Batman Beyond: New Hero in Town and Batman Beyond: No Place Like Home, followed by two more, released on May 28, 2002: Batman Beyond: Hear No Evil and Batman Beyond: Grounded.
Among the live action films proposed between the critical failure of Batman & Robin and the Batman Begins was Batman Beyond. In August 2000, Warner Bros. announced that it was developing a live-action film adaptation with Boaz Yakin attached to co-write and direct. The TV series' creators, Dini and Alan Burnett, were hired to write a screenplay for the feature film, with Neal Stephenson as consultant. Yakin hoped to cast Clint Eastwood as the retired Batman. By July 2001, a first draft was turned in to the studio, and the writers were waiting to see if a rewrite would be needed. The studio, also exploring other takes of Batman in development eventually placed Batman Beyond on hold in August 2001, but ultimately canceled the proposal. Yakin reportedly wanted the film to be dark, nihilistic, and with swearing and violence, and not the PG-13 film the studio wanted.
In January 2019, rumors began to circulate that Warner Animation Group was developing an animated Batman Beyond film following the critical and commercial success of Sony Pictures Animation's , but was later reported that no such film was in the works. In the later August interview with DC Universe, Paul Dini revealed that Warner Bros. continues to express interest in a film adaptation but have put emphasis on other projects. Actor Tyler Posey has expressed interest in playing Terry McGinnis in the possible film adaptation. In June 2020, Michael Keaton entered talks to play an elderly Bruce Wayne, reprising his role from Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), in the DCEU film, The Flash, which was set for release in 2023. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. hopes for Keaton to return for multiple DCEU films in a way "akin to the role played by Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, something of a mentor or guide or even string-puller". Keaton was officially confirmed to return in August of the same year. In December 2022, it was announced that Christina Hodson, writer of The Flash and the cancelled Batgirl film, had been hired to write a script for a live-action Batman Beyond film. The plot would have involved an aged Bruce Wayne, continuing the plot threads from his appearance in The Flash, and would have included the return of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman. Development on the film was shelved after James Gunn and Peter Safran were appointed as co-heads of DC Studios. In January 2023, Gunn and Safran stated that there is potential for a future multiverse project in which they may incorporate Keaton's incarnation of Batman.
In March 2023 it was reported that an animated Batman Beyond film had been put into development, written by Daniel Casey and serving as WB's answer to . However, the project was put into commission under the leadership of Walter Hamada, who served as DC Films president from 2018 to 2022, and it is currently unknown if it is still happening under Gunn and Safran's direction, though Jeff Sneider of The Hollywood Reporter noted that nobody who was working on the project was told it was cancelled.
The Batman Beyond Batsuit appears as an alternate costume in Justice League Heroes and as downloadable content in and .
A Batman Beyond DLC was included in the third Lego Batman video game.
A "Batman of the Future" character pack featuring the Terry McGinnis Batman with all its trademark gadgets (such as the flying suit and the ability to turn invisible) and other Batman Beyond-era characters were revealed to be PS3/PS4-exclusive DLC for .
Rocksteady Studios created their own unique take on the Batman Beyond Batsuit for as a pre-order bonus along with The Dark Knight Returns Batsuit titled "Gotham's Future Pack".
Batman Beyond appears in the mobile games Teeny Titans and Teen Titans Go! Figure.
Batman Beyond is alluded in Teen Titans Go! In the episode "Sandwich Thief", Robin travels to the future to his father Dick Grayson's apartment where a poster of the Batman Beyond Batman can be seen, indicating that Nightwing admires this incarnation of Batman.
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