Batman: The Animated Series from the ‘90s is still the high-water mark of Batman stories for some people, thanks to a surprisingly mature and occasionally dark take on the Dark Knight that still found time to be legitimately fun and comic book-y. Its voice cast in particular, led by Kevin Conroy’s Batman and Mark Hamill’s Joker (not to mention Arleen Sorkin’s Harley Quinn, who made her debut in the series), even helped establish some of the most iconic versions of these mostly decades-old characters.
Conroy and Hamill have returned to their roles a few times, most notably in the Arkham video game series and when Conroy actually played a live-action Bruce Wayne on The CW’s Crisis On Infinite Earths, but despite its acclaim, Batman: The Animated Series itself has oddly been left untouched by the modern revival/reboot boom.
That’s apparently not going to stop the voice cast from getting back together, though. Speaking during a panel at Los Angeles Comic Con (via The Hollywood Reporter), Conroy revealed that there’s an “audio drama” in the works that will continue the story of the show and “brings back the original cast.” Conroy was joined on the panel by John Glover, who played The Riddler on the show, but they didn’t say which other actors might join them.
What we do know is that Alan Burnett, a writer on the original show, is developing the project and that “Danny Elfman will write the theme.” (Which implies that the audio drama won’t be using Elfman’s original theme.) Other voice actors who are not-yet-confirmed for this project include Paul Williams (who played the Penguin), Richard Moll (Two-Face), Loren Lester (Dick Grayson/Robin/Nightwing), and Adrienne Barbeau (Catwoman). Michael Ansara, whose performance as Mr. Freeze is arguably better than Hamill’s Joker, unfortunately died in 2013.
There’s no word on when or where this audio drama (THR also uses the word “podcast”) might come out, but (as THR also points out), HBO Max has Batman: The Audio Adventures with Jeffrey Wright already and Spotify has an upcoming project with Winston Duke called Batman Unburied. So maybe this one will be on… iHeartRadio? Apple Podcasts? The Doughboys Patreon? Where else do people get podcasts?
