‘Batman: The Animated Series’ Reportedly Being Revived at HBO Max

HBO Max is reportedly reviving Batman: The Animated Series, an iconic cartoon from the ’90s starring everyone’s favorite Caped Crusader. Fatman Beyond co-hosts Marc Bernardin and Kevin Smith first discussed the news on their podcast. “The rumor is that HBO Max is looking at making a Batman: The Animated Series sequel, that they want to continue that forward,” Bernardin said.

Smith then joked, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” before adding that he, too, had heard this news. “I’m not involved, but I too have heard this and I’ve heard this from very reliable people. When I heard it I freaked out, and I heard this…I would say a month before you just said it. I think that’s real, I don’t think that’s a rumor, I wouldn’t say ‘Set your watch to it,’ but it’s an idea whose time is not only coming, I think it came, and it’s smoking a cigarette. I think that’s gonna happen.”

“How f—ing amazing would that be because you can just literally pick up and keep going,” Smith then added. “It’s not like, ‘Oh we gotta explain why everyone’s older,’ it’s f—ing animation man so you can go right back to those amazing f—ing stories.” Smith is most well-known for being the writer and director of films like Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma and Jay and Silent Strike Back, but few know that he actually spent time writing Batman comics. He even co-created a new DC Comics villain, Onomatopoeia, who first appeared in a Green Arrow comic that Smith wrote with artist Phil Hester, and later returned in Batman: Cacophony, which Smith wrote with artist and longtime friend Walt Flanagan.

Batman: The Animated Series debuted in 1992 and ran for a total of 85 episodes, ending in 1995. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, the series is widely considered among the best animated series of all-time, with many citing it as the greatest comic book-based cartoon ever made. The show featured iconic voice actor Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne/Batman and spawned two films: 1993’s Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and 1998’s direct-to-video Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero. A brief sequel series, The New Batman Adventures, followed it, and it set the tone for a slew of other animated DC properties, including Batman Beyond, Justice League Unlimited and Static Shock. Neither DC Comics nor Warner Bros. appears to have confirmed the revival news at this time.