The legendary Bruce Timm is known for being the creator behind many of DC’s animated offerings. The ‘Timmverse’ saw a new dimension to characters such as Batman, Superman, and the Justice League, with Batman: The Animated Series being one of the most celebrated shows of all time. Timm was quite literally the Godfather of DC animation.
Despite his prowess and Midas touch, the animator was reportedly not too keen on developing one show that went on to become a cult classic. Batman Beyond, which was an original show that was not based on any comic, was reportedly the product of studio interference, which wanted a young, teenage Batman instead of an aging Bruce Wayne.
Bruce Timm Created Batman Beyond After Being Arm-Twisted Into Making A Younger Batman Show
When Bruce Timm was asked to make a younger Batman show by WB and DC studios, he and his loyal crew had reportedly just begun to find their footing with The New Batman Adventures. A follow-up to their fan-favorite Batman: The Animated Series, the new show was finally on fire and the makers were tying up the DCAU with other shows such as Superman: The Animated Series.
However, just as they found their footing, Timm was reportedly asked to stop aging Bruce Wayne and make him into a teenager. The creator was reportedly shocked when he heard of the request by the studios. He said in an interview with IGN,
“It was not the words I expected to hear, let’s just say that. We were in the middle of doing our second iteration of Batman, The New Batman Adventures. We’d found our groove, we were digging the look of the show, we were digging the scripts and stuff, we were on fire. So to have the rug pulled out from under us, it was just like, ‘Oh God, seriously?’”
Timm recalled that his primary objective at the time was to not mess with the continuity and world-building that they had established in Batman: TAS and Superman: TAS. He mentioned that the only way he could make a younger Batman work while still maintaining the canon of the previous shows was to set Batman Beyond in the future and have a new Batman.
James Tucker, the director of the show, said that a futuristic show like Batman Beyond was exactly what the studio needed,
“Bruce and Alan had always tried to push it off because… there are no bad ideas, there’s just bad ways of doing things. The network always seems to pick one…Bruce and Alan came and told all of us what they told the network. They pitched a young Batman, Terry McGinnis with an old Bruce Wayne.”
The show was reportedly immediately greenlit after their discussion and the same crew as before began developing ideas for the show.
Bruce Timm Was Particular About Getting The Futuristic Gotham Right
After being encouraged by producer and animator Glen Murakami, who would go on to develop Teen Titans, Bruce Timm reportedly gathered up his old team from other DC shows and began developing the world and design of Batman Beyond. Murakami reportedly was excited by the idea as the team had become boxed into a singular style and he wanted to show that they were capable of other stuff.
Bruce Timm mentioned to IGN that they had very little time to develop the show and they immediately began working on it,
“We had no time to develop the show. And we were still finishing up The New Batman Adventures. So we were doing two shows at the same time. We didn’t have scripts, we didn’t have characters, we hadn’t done any of the world-building yet. It was a mad dash. We were making stuff up on the fly.”
However, the Godfather of the DCAU was reportedly very particular about how the future would look like in this version of Gotham. He constantly pushed writers and artists to craft elements that would work twenty years into the future. He said,
“I really wanted the show to have its own identity. [Our writers] literally had villains robbing banks. And I’m like, ‘Dude, 50 years from now, banks are not going to be banks as we know them. Nobody’s going to be using cash.’ We were at least smart enough to realize that.”
Timm’s insistence on creating future-accurate story elements reportedly enabled the team to almost predict the iPad.
