Paul Dini on The “Batman Beyond” Live-Action Movie That Was Never Made

If you’re anything like me, you listen to Kevin Smith’s podcast, Fatman on Batman on a regular bases. FatMan on Batman is a podcast where director Kevin Smith talks to Batman writers, artiest, and celebrities who have a deep love for the character. On an older episodes, Smith had writer of Batman: The Animated Series and long time friend, Paul Dini in the Fatcave talking about Batman. During the podcast, Paul Dini mentioned that along with Alan Burnett, another writer from Batman: The Animated Series, where asked by Warner Bros. to write a live-action version of “Batman Beyond.”     

“Alan [Burnett] and I actually worked on a Batman Beyond live-action feature. We worked with Boaz Yakin … Boaz was talking to the folks at Warners about some projects, and he’d just directed Remember the Titans, which was a really good sports story, football story. One of the ideas that he liked was Batman Beyond … but he really wanted to work on it with Alan and myself. So we had a number of meetings, and we actually all worked on a draft together.”

“It was fine…it wasn’t like [Return of the Joker]. It was set in Gotham future, but it didn’t quite have the fantastic, futuristic edge. It was sort of like an amalgam, there was a little bit of Dark Knight, there was a little bit of contemporary comics, and there was Terry and the suit and everything. It was Old Bruce Wayne. So they were in it, but it was just a little bit…I dunno, for whatever reason, this was a more successful film. The first draft went in and needed some work, then basically everybody decided it was better, rather than spend a lot of time on this, let’s just table it.”

Dini and Burnett were both writers on “Batman Beyond” which aired from 1999 to 2001. “Batman Beyond” took place in a futuristic Gotham city, where a high school student named Terry McGinnis takes on the mantel of Batman under the guidance of an elderly Bruce Wayne. Throughout the series, Terry must face the new Rogues Gallery along with some familiar villains. Kevin Conroy returned as the voice of Bruce Wayne with Will Friedle voicing Terry McGinis.