Why Does Warner Bros. Keep Making Live Action Batman Shows Without Batman?

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I decided that, instead of doing a comic book review, I was going to talk about a comic book related topic instead. Today I'm going to be talking about Batman in live action TV shows and why Warner Bros. doesn't seem to be able to produce a live action Batman TV series that has Batman in it, as Batman, not just as Bruce Wayne. So let's get into it.

From 1966 until 1968, 20th Century Fox Television, in collaboration with Greenway Productions, produced a TV series based on DC Comics's Batman, which aired on ABC. But since then there hasn't been a full on live action Batman TV series, though there have been several attempts. Which we will now get into.

Smallville had been a big hit for The WB when it first started airing in 2001. As a result, The WB wanted to capitalize on its success by turning to their next biggest character...the Birds of Prey? Sort of. Birds of Prey told the story of a Gotham City where Batman was no longer around. Instead, Barbara Gordon (Dina Meyer) protects the city as Oracle, having been shot and crippled by the Joker as some point, alongside Batman and Catwoman's daughter, Helena Kyle (Ashley Scott), who patrols the city as the vigilante, the Huntress, and Dinah Redmond (Rachel Skarsten) who is the daughter of the Black Canary, Carolyn Lance (Lori Loughlin). Unfortunately the series was canceled after 13 episodes due to low ratings.

The next attempt was more successful. Airing on Fox for five seasons from 2014 until 2019, Gotham stars Ben MacKenzie (The O.C.) as a young Jim Gordon, who is trying to discover who killed the Waynes after promising their son, Bruce (David Mazouz). Over the show's five seasons the shows explores the origins of all of Batman's Rogues Gallery, as well as many of his allies, including Alfred, Harvey Bullock, Renee Montoya and many MANY others. Like Smallville did with Superman in 2011, Gotham ended with Bruce returning to Gotham City as Batman.

In 2018 Berlanti Productions developed a Teen Titans live action series for the DC Universe streaming service called Titans (2018-2023). While the show was more focused on Batman's proteges, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Barbara Gordon, along with the other Titans, Bruce Wayne did appear in seasons 2 and 3, played by Iain Glen. 

Bruce Wayne appeared once again in season 1 of Batwoman (2019-2022). This time he was played by Warren Christie. I think he actually appeared in the Batsuit in the pilot as part of Kate's flashbacks. But that's not the only time he showed up.

Bruce Wayne also appeared in the Arrowverse crossover, Crisis On Infinite Earths, in the episode that was produced as part of season 1 of Batwoman. In this iteration, he's an evil version of the character who killed Batwoman and Superman. This time he was played by Kevin Conroy, who had originally voiced the character in Batman: The Animated Series and its spin-offs in the early '90s to mid 2000s. Other references to previous Batman shows and movies appeared throughout the crossover, including the return of Ashley Scott as Helena Kyle from Birds of Prey, Burt Ward as Dick Grayson from Batman (1966), and Robert Wuhl as Alexander Knox from Batman (1989). 

The most recent attempt to do a Batman series without Batman was once again done by The CW, the successor to The WB. Gotham Knights is about Turner Hayes (Oscar Morgan), the adoptive son of Bruce Wayne/Batman, who's a brand new character created for this show, trying to figure out who murdered Batman and framed him and some characters from the comics, including Stephanie Brown (Anna Lore) and Duela Dent/Joker's Daughter (Olivia Rose Keegan), among other characters new and old. At the time I'm writing this post, the show has already been canceled by The CW due to the show being expensive to produce, and the fact that it hasn't been profitable for the network. But why have all these attempts been made over the years?

The reason that Warner Bros. hasn't been able to make a full blown live action Batman series is the same reason that it took more than 20 years for a full blown Superman show to be produced after Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman went off the air in 1997, there can't be a live action show airing on TV if there's a movie in production as per the studio's agreement with the Kane and Finger estates, who own the Batman character. And since 1979, when the first Tim Burton movie first went into development, there has been a live action Batman movie in various stages of development and production. Between the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher movies from 1979 until 1997, the unproduced Batman movies from 1997 until 2002, The Dark Knight Trilogy from 2002 until 2012, and then the most recent DCEU attempts and Matt Reeves's 2022 film, The Batman, there has never been a time that a Batman movie hasn't been in development and/or production in the last 44 years. Because of this the studio and the various networks haven't been able to produce a live action, Primetime, Batman television series. The only reason these attempts were even made is because they involved characters who were created by other people after Batman had been sold to DC Comics in 1939. 

As you can see, Bruce Wayne himself, either as Batman, or as Bruce Wayne, has shown up in most of these shows, he just couldn't be the lead character. Even the Max The Batman spin-off, The Penguin is allowed because Batman isn't in the show, or doesn't play a major role in the show. It's why the original concept for Smallville, which was Batman's origin story, not Superman's, was rejected by The WB as WB's film division had already decided to do a Batman: Year One inspired movie, which would eventually evolve into Batman Begins (2005).

That's all I have for today. I just wanted to go over the various attempts at bringing Batman's world to the small screen as there have been so many in the last almost 21 years, and they've all had some degree of success, with Gotham probably being the most successful of all of these attempts. I'll be back tomorrow for some pre-season thoughts for season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. So until then have a great night and I'll talk to you later. Take care.