Why Did We Never See Neal Stephenson's Future-Batman Movie?
Batman Beyond, the darkest and most futuristic animated Batman
series, came close to becoming a live-action movie before
Warners decided to go with Bat-origin story Batman Begins
instead. The story of a teenager who becomes the new Batman in
the dystopian future of 2040, thanks to a cybernetic Batsuit,
Batman Beyond could have been the Bat-version of Blade Runner.
Especially when you realize that Snow Crash author Neal
Stephenson consulted on the script, written by animated czars
Paul Dini and Alan Burnett. What would it have been about?  The
original pilot episode of Batman Beyond offers plenty of
potential for a movie. It's 20 years in the future, and the
original Batman is no longer able to fight crime as well as he
used to. One night, chasing a criminal gang, Bruce Wayne has a
heart attack, and has to resort to threatening a thug with a
gun, something he swore never to do. So Batman finally retires —
until 20 years after that, when teenager Terr