Batman Beyond Gets an Animated Movie Pitch From Spider-Verse Producer and It Looks STUNNING
Terry McGinnis is back in the Crisis on Infinite Earths animated movie, but Patrick Harpin and Yuhki Demers want to go further.
Writer/Director Patrick Harpin (My Dad the Bounty Hunter) and production designer/producer Yuhki Demers (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse) have apparently teamed up to pitch an animated Batman Beyond movie to Warner Bros., and in a sign of either confidence or desperation, they have released a number of still images from the production on social media. In the shots, Terry McGinnis explores Neo-Gotham and faces off with Inque, one of his most dangerous enemies from the original show (who also played a key role in the later comic book adaptations).
According to Demers, the pair have been pitching various folks at Warner Bros. for almost six months, but have not yet spoken to James Gunn. In spite of that seemingly promising progress through the ranks, the animator admits that the very first thing they were told was that they weren't going to get a "yes" on Batman Beyond.
"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'," Demers explained. "In the time since, we've been pitching our way up the company hoping to get to James Gunn. But for now, here's a taste of what we've been cooking."
You can see the images below.
Batman Beyond ran from 1999 until 2001, weighing in at 3 seasons and 52 episodes -- plus a direct-to-video feature film. It also span off The Zeta Project, which ran for two seasons in 2001 and 2002.
In the teaser for part two of Warner Home Entertainment's three part Crisis on Infinite Earths adaptation, Terry McGinnis arrives, marking the character's first featured animation role in years. In the time since the original show wrapped up, there has been near-constant talk about doing a live-action adaptation, or a sequel movie, or a reboot. Things have, to this point, never gotten off the ground, perhaps because the show was so beloved that any follow-up would almost be guaranteed to suffer by comparison.
The character has had continued adventures in DC comics, where a 25th anniversary anthology is coming soon. He even (kinda/sorta) joined the main line DC continuity for a while, teaming up with Booster Gold and throwing down with the Bruce Wayne version of Batman.