In 1999 Warner Brothers was devising a plan for the next Batman film. Ever since the critical and finical failure of 1997’s Batman and Robin, Warner’s had to lay low from the franchise for a while. But now enough time had a passed and they were ready to once again bring The Caped Crusader to the big screen. Several ideas were being thrown around but perhaps the most interesting involved a live action Batman Beyond adaptation.

Now for those of you unfamiliar with Batman Beyond, it is a cartoon series that ran from January 1999 to December 2001. It is yet another addition to the sprawling DC animated universe. The show is set in a future Gotham City, one in which the original Batman has been retired for many years. The show introduces Terry McGinnis, a high school student who ends up taking the mantle of The Batman with Bruce Wayne acting as his commander/mentor.

While originally intended by Warner Brothers executives to be more kid friendly in tone as compared to previous DC animated shows, Batman Beyond ended up being perhaps the darkest show in the franchise. The dark nature of the show was due much to the edgy rock music soundtrack and the dystopian feel of the city and villains. Certainly there was plenty of solid source material to make a successful film adaptation.

In producing a script Warner Brothers had the benefit of turning to people who worked on the TV series. Paul Dini and Alan Burnett, two longtime architects of the DC animated universe, were asked to develop a script. Alongside them was Neal Stephenson, an accomplished science fiction writer. Stephenson’s penchant for writing in the postcyberpunk genre was helpful in developing a cinematic adaptation of the future Gotham City from the series. Boaz Yakin was attached to direct the film and also helped out with the writing.

A script was produced and handed into Warner Brothers. However the decision was made not to pursue the Batman Beyond movie project and instead look towards doing an adaptation of Frank Miller’s popular Year One graphic novel. While a strict Year One movie adaptation was never produced it did serve in some part as the blueprint of Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins, the film that proved to be a massive success and brought the Batman film franchise back to life.

At this point it’s not impossible to imagine a live action Batman Beyond movie being made, it is however extremely unlikely. With the ongoing success of the Nolan franchise it seems unnecessary on Warner’s part to produce a different Batman film. Instead they are pouring all their resources into Nolan’s series and admittedly that is for the best.

But I still can’t help but wonder just what a Batman Beyond film would have had to offer. If nothing else it surely would have been a unique chapter in the history of Batman films.