Batman: Caped Crusader has landed on Amazon. All episodes at once.
There was much excitement. It was lauded as the spiritual successor to the ultimate animated version of the character, the still-adored Batman: The Animated Series. It was said to be noir and mature. Reviews were stellar with everyone from Den Of Geek to the mainstream press praising what they saw.
It sits at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics.
Even returning mastermind Bruce Timm was talking up the show. In an interview with The Wrap, Timm revealed he resisted returning for years despite Warner Bros asking several times to simply continue Batman: The Animated Series.
He said it was this chance to do something new that tempted him back:
“They said, ‘Hey, how would you feel about going back and making some more Batman: The Animated Series episodes?’ And I’m like, ‘Nah, we’d been there, we’d done that.’ I wasn’t interested in just revisiting that world.”
He was eventually tempted by the idea of a younger Bruce Wayne in his early crime-fighting days:
“The more we started talking about it, it was like, ‘Okay, that’s interesting. That’s interesting.’ ”
Once canned by Max, it was then switched to Amazon Prime by Warner Bros. So far so good… until it landed.
Suddenly it seemed the audiences weren’t quite as plugged in as the critics. It is sitting at 66% on Rotten Tomatoes for audience score, and falling. Why is this? It would appear to be ongoing audience weariness with “the message”. As one critic put it:
“All DEI boxes ticked.”
So what is it? A worthy successor to one of the greatest animated shows of all time? Or something collapsing under the weight of standard “current year” thinking?
That audience score will be interesting to watch. If it goes any lower, no doubt the cries of “review bombing” and other standard Hollywood deflections will begin.