While Batman Beyond was a phenomenon upon its release, lauded as one of the best Batman stories told onscreen, the creators never really expanded on it after its initial run. Even 25 years after its debut, Return of the Joker remains its only feature film, which failed to make it big during its DVD release for being too dark for kids.
However, per Bruce Timm’s long-time collaborator Butch Lukic, there were once talks about revisiting Terry McGinnis’ story, but unfortunately, the idea never took off the ground.
Butch Lukic’s Busy Schedule Didn’t Allow Room for More Batman Beyond
2021 finally saw one of the most iconic Batman stories being adapted onto the screen with Batman: The Long Halloween, on which Butch Lukic served as a supervising producer. On asked if there were plans to revisit Terry McGinnis’ story once again, as it has been over two decades since the show wrapped up, unfortunately, Lukic said he was occupied with other things at the time.
Speaking with Comicbookmovie.com, Lukic revealed that there were talks about revisiting the acclaimed series, but no one was really on board with the idea. He further stressed that it’s up to Bruce Timm about the future of this series, and even though the producer would’ve loved to dive into more Batman Beyond, his schedule wouldn’t have allowed it.
He said:
“Yeah. We discussed that during our roundtable conference. That was a few years ago and, at the time, no one really wanted to go down that route. If anyone should, it should, of course, be Bruce Timm. I’d love to do it, but I’ve had to do other stuff in the meantime, so…”
Interestingly, we were once on the verge of a sequel to ROTJ, the only Batman Beyond feature film, which would’ve incorporated a crazy twist if it had seen the light.
Catwoman Would’ve Been the Primary Antagonist in Return of the Joker 2
While considered a classic by many, Return of the Joker failed to do great numbers upon its DVD release, despite being deemed great by critics, which currently holds a 100% at the Tomatometer. Considering the pushback against violence in kids’ media was extremely high back in the 2000s, being a dark gritty story, which pushed the boundaries of the medium, didn’t help ROTJ‘s case.
However, prior to the film’s underperformance, there were plans for a sequel, which would’ve seen Catwoman as the primary antagonist.
Timm recalled (via CBR):
“Catwoman was going to be our leading villain in the second movie… she was the one who cloned Bruce Wayne to create Terry, but that was going to be our big surprise in our next movie,”
But with Spider-Verse artist Yuhki Demers recently sharing a concept art for a potential BB animated feature, fans will hope the ball on some new BB projects gets rolling sometime soon.
Batman Beyond is available to stream on Max.
