DC COMICS: Boaz Yakin Batman Beyond

DC COMICS IN THE MEDIA

BATMAN FAMILY IN THE MEDIA

BATMAN BEYOND IN THE MEDIA

WHAT WE KNOW:
"I had just made Remember the Titans," he told me, "and my inclination is to always go off a trend: make an independent film after I make a studio film. I spoke to my agent, and he said, 'I think you need to do another studio movie before you do that.' I was just basically like, 'Well, if I'm going to do a studio movie, like, I want it to be Batman' -- which at the time I just meant, if I'm going to do a studio movie, I want it to be a big ol' thing."

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In a humorous twist, Yakin explained, his agent took him quite literally. "He came back to me and said, 'I have a meeting set up for you at Warner Bros. about Batman.' I was like, 'What!? [Laughs] Okay.' I guess at the time I think Darren Aronofsky was developing a Batman: Year One type of thing." (Year One, of course, would eventually go to Christopher Nolan, who turned it into Batman Begins.) "So I said, 'Okay, let me see what I can do,' and I came up with this pitch on Batman Beyond."

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But what exactly was the director's vision for the acclaimed animated series? "It was almost like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man but a little bit darker -- a teenage, kind of futuristic, cyberpunk Batman thing."

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During his short few months with the project, Yakin co-wrote a draft of the screenplay with Batman Beyond creators Paul Dini and Alan Burnett. However, Yakin said it wasn't long before the pressure of making a superhero movie got to him. "[I] very quickly got the feeling that I would be in the zone, the madness, and I didn't really have the heart for it at the time," he said, "and I basically bailed after one draft. I just went, 'I can't do this.'"