Ben wrote:
So why is this anything to do with the 1960s series coming to disc from WB? Well, of course Batman is a WB-owned character through WB-owned DC Comics. Gotham, on the other hand, is being produced for the Fox network... And it's pretty obvious once you put the pieces together exactly what WB's bargaining chip was in letting them have the rights to a new series...
Batman is simply one of Warner Bros/DC Comics' cashcows...
They've been milking that character going on nearly 30 years now.
It's been a very good happy coincidence that some of the best Batman multimedia (animated series, animated movies, videogames) have been produced during the same time frame. You can't say that about most of the other superheroes let alone other DC characters... The best work has generally been done with Batman.
(I still hate the live-action stuff other than the Adam West series. Watched the Adam West Batman film... It's better than I remembered!)
It's like how Star Trek is called 'the franchise' at Paramount.
Of course, everything else is owned by Disney now!
Anyhoo, Batman celebrated the 75th anniversary of the publication of the very first Batman comic last year. That's why they commissioned those two animated Batman shorts over a year ago... This is the part of the celebration of the character. You hardly notice that kind of thing now with most of the other characters... It seems after the 50th anniversaries they have not emphasized the age/anniversaries of a bunch of those comic book characters...
Only Superman has gotten anniversary treatment and it's positively anemic compared to what WB/DC promoted for Batman. They did do a 75th Anniversary Superman animated short but it pales compared to what was done for Batman!
The Batman TV series (1960s) has been going through a kind of renaissance in popularity (same thing happened with The Monkees in the 1980s on their 20th anniversary) and this has been going on for well over a year now. The TV show release on home video is only the climax of that celebration but it will go on for at least two more years until the official 50th anniversary of the TV series. They have a new Batman comic book (Batman '66) that's on its second year that's based on the continuity and bat-characters from the 1960s TV series. It's a very different comic from the 'mainstream DC Batman'. (In other words, it's actually a fun comic book to read whereas the usual Batman for the last 25 years has generally been dark and violent and basically about as friendly as a guard dog. Yeah.)
And yeah, Batman: The Animated Series ('92-'95) itself is due for a 25th anniversary in two years as well. That'll probably be around the time they'll actually do Blu ray releases of that series (IF they bother to re-release in HD disc format) and Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. There's still a heck of a lot of stuff that STILL hasn't been released on Blu ray (or DVD!) and now they're talking about Ultra HD!
(I'm frankly amazed that even Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman was released Blu ray. That's easily the weakest of the B:TAS animated series spin-off movies. It puzzles that Mask of the Phantasm hasn't been released on Blu ray yet. That's still my favorite Batman film, animated or live-action, period...)
Virtually every DC character (Batman & Robin, Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash, The Justice Society of America which was THE original superhero team, and so on; most of the major Marvel Comics characters are 'only' 50 years old -- only Captain America, The Sub-Mariner, and the Human Torch are as old as the DC characters),has passed their 70+year anniversary in the last few years but you would hardly know it because DC is basically celebrating the anniversaries on of all things freakin' comic book variant covers! I'm dead serious...! There are maybe 100,000 people (in a good month) who actually routinely buy comics in the US. That's less than 1% of the population! More kids know these characters from the shows on TV and the movies and T-shirts than will ever read the comics by far... Marvel and DC are almost certainly not making money off the monthly comic books. Trades and special edition hardcovers, yes, but not the 32-page monthly junk.
**DC IS celebrating Batman to a much greater point because that's who they make the most money with now.** Superman WAS the major/number one DC character but that was through about the late 1960s/early 1970s. Since the late 1970s, Batman has definitely been more popular. They're trying to promote the other characters with the new TV series (The Flash, Arrow) and animated tie-in's as well as continuing to exploit Batman.
I'll be dead honest -- I haven't like most of the live-action DC movies or any of the more recent TV series. I just don't care for the CW/WB stuff. The animated stuff was definitely more my flavor until about the last 2-3 years.
** = Can't be emphasized enough!