Batman's shrinking (a rant).

[finster]

With Terminator 3, Time-Warner now has four major film franchises in gear (T3, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings & The Matrix). There are also a glut of Marvel comic properties in the pipeline (X-Men, Spider-man, The Hulk, Daredevil, likely Fantastic Four & more). Therefore, I think that it's unlikely that we'll see a Batman film for a long, long time. Warner has more than enough franchise pictures, and all those Marvel properties may well burn out the average film-goer on comic adaptations.
This is a tough time for Batman. With the Spider-man movie and new cartoon on- I believe- MTV, Spidey is poised to take over as the #1 hero of the average (non-comic reading) American.
It's also tough to see the trailer for 'Spider-man', a movie being made by a real comic fan, Sam Raimi. His love of Spidey (particularly a Stan Lee-Steve Ditko Silver Age Spidey) is all over it.
Batman has never had anyone with a real love for the character bring him to the screen. Before 'Batman' opened in 1989, Tim Burton claimed to have never been a fan of comic books, and rejected Batman's origin as "stupid comic book stuff and we don't explore it at all" (Cinefantastique, Nov.'89). I won't even discuss Joel Schumacher.
Heck, even the Batman toy license being held hostage by Hasbro is killing the Dark Knight.
So, what can be done to save Batman in non-print media?
First, I say revive 'Bruce Wayne' to pair with 'Smallville' on the WB. 'Smallville' is now a legitimate hit, and this would make a nice programming block. And, by the way, the 'Bruce Wayne' pilot was written by someone who does love Batman, Tim McCanlies of 'The Iron Giant'. I'll even bet they could get Paul Dini to script some episodes. And a 'Year One' film could possibly grow out of 'BW' in a few years (like the 'X-Files').
And make a direct-to-video animated Batman feature. And make it computer animated. If you've seen the cut-scenes by UbiSoft for Batman Vengeance you know that they're incredible. Surveys show that little kids are more excited by computer animation than traditional. A kid who might shrug at a cel animation Batman video might well get excited about a computer animated one. Timm & Company could still write and direct, they'd just be sending their storyboards to computer animators in Canada rather than cel animators in Korea.
Well, those are my ideas. Things may not look good for the Dark Knight right now, but he's been in tighter spots before. Long live Batman.

[James Harvey]

The Dark Knight is indeed in a tough spot. With WB's four franchises, and a possible fifth in Scooby-DOo, Batman is indeed in for the ride of his life. With the 2003 date being scrapped (check the newspage), we may not see the DarK Knight grace the big screen until 2004 at the earliest - still three years away! Plus alot can happen in that time to either push is ahead of push it way back. I'm a fairly optomistic person so I think we will see a new film by 2005 at the latest. As long as Schumacher isn't allowed within 300 feet of the set, and is banned from ever doing another comic book movie, then I can sleep good at night. :)

If we see another animated movie, I'd really hope for a animated version done by TMS. I'm not a real big fan of CGI, but if it must be done - I'd like to see it done by the SFX crew behind Harry Potter - who is ILM I believe. They put in some really convincing CGI characters in that movie and did a good job blending CGI with live action at some points so it could work.

And I'm all for the movie being sent to Canada's Mainframe...they would do a magnificent job.

[Failure]

ILM did Harry Potter? They did LOTR too.

[finster]

I'm a huge fan of TMS myself (I want an animated DVD just so I can watch 'Feat of Clay, part II'- the best animation produced for television, ever- frame by frame). I just feel that computer animation is a way to make an older property seem fresh and exciting again. And the stuff UbiSoft did is just dazzling. Wizard gave Batman:Vengeance their 'Best Cinemas' Video Game Award, calling them 'awe-inspiring'- and they really are. (Ugh, I'm quoting Wizard)

[James Harvey]

"Ugh - I'm quoting Wizard" - Ha!. Unfortunatly - I haven't seen Batman: Vengeance. I don't even own a PS2, Gamecube or whatever they are. I'm not really big into video games. The only that that really bugs me about CGI is getting the mouth movements to work. Fix that and I am totally for it. CGI would be an interesting way to revitalize the Dark Knight. The question is -- would they base it on the 'animated' look or make it 'realistic'?

[mosszonedotcom]

The Batman Vengeance cgi very much follows the Batman: TAS design, and that's a huge plus. Screw the live action films. This is the real Batman.

Finster, I agree that Feat of Clay is awesome. The Clayface episodes are my favorites. Mudslide is awesome too!

[Heehaw]

I'm hoping for the best in regards to the Spiderman movie, but the CG looks horrible. I saw the new extended teaser on LOTR and it just looks fake. I actually liked the trailer, though. The narration was cool and I like Tobey as the hero, though I must say I'm not a fan of this ditsy Mary Jane that Dunst seems to be doing. I'm not too sure how she is supposed to be potrayed but I don't like what I've seen in the trailer. Let's hope it's not another Batman and Robin. The buzz is that it isn't campy, though the bad CG will replace that for me. Sam Raimi has yet to disappoint, for me, so let's hope he doesn't start now.