The Best Batman Film No One Saw

2. A Box-Office Failure Of WB's Own Making

The real tragedy of Mask of the Phantasm, however, isn't the dissolution of Bruce Wayne's love life, but the pitiful reception it released to. This was a picture destined to illustrate the creative scope of Batman: The Animated Series to a whole other audience, but a rushed schedule led Warner Bros. to bungle its marketing, which amounted to little more than one measly theatrical trailer.

The film was originally conceived as a straight-to-video effort, but soon changed to a theatrical release upon the request of the studio. Said change brought with it an increase in budget, with the film costing $6 million to make. This in turn granted more freedom to the film's creators, but in meeting a December release, the Brothers Warner left little time to actually sell the film to audiences, with little to no press being conducted in the run up to its Christmas premier.

As a result, Mask of the Phantasm made only $2 million over its first two days in theatres, with strong word of mouth alone not enough to carry the film to a profitable ending. With further releases on VHS, DVD and now Blu-Ray, Mask of the Phantasm has somewhat reversed its unfortunate spell in theatres, but while it found renewal in home media, you'd have been hard-pressed to find a fan in 1993, where Burton's Bat-films remained the popular cinematic interpretation of the Bob Kane-Bill Finger comic.

Given the film's now stellar reputation, it might be difficult to comprehend that it struggled to capture an audience quite the way it did. This was a feature that distilled the very essence of Batman into an hour-long adventure, but whereas its contemporaries were never found wanting in the marketing department, Mask of the Phantasm was plunged into deep waters and forced to float on its own - encumbered by a release date that never truly allowed its filmmakers to promote it the way they would've hoped.