10 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About The DC Animated Universe
3. They Were Continually Screwed Over By Failed Live Action Projects
Despite its status as a critical darling and fan favourite, the DCAU was never the priority focus for DC or Warner Brothers, meaning that it often had to work around whatever live action projects were in production at the time. Warners insisted, for example, that the Batman: The Animated Series Penguin resemble the one in Tim Burton's Batman Returns (even though The Animated Series was then airing on Fox), but wouldn't release any images of the character, meaning that Timm had to work from sketches that he made of Danny DeVito on set.
At least Batman Returns was a good and successful movie. Unfortunately, Timm and his team were also constantly having to bend over backwards to accommodate DC prioritising its many live action failures.
A second effort at a DCAU Catwoman solo project, this time a movie following on from Mystery Of The Batwoman, was initially backed because it would capture fans of the live action Halle Berry movie. When that movie bombed, the plug was pulled completely on the animated movie.
Before that, Batman And Robin, which took the DCAU's sympathetic backstory for a more complex Mr Freeze rather than the traditional comic book version, proving so unpopular with fans hugely pushed back the release of the DCAU's own Mr Freeze movie Batman And Robin: SubZero.
Meanwhile, Justice League Unlimited was not as unlimited as its title might suggest when it came to which DC characters it was allowed to use. Aquaman, for example, never appeared after the first season because a live action Aquaman series was in development from the creators of Smallville. The show wasn't picked up and its pilot released as an underwhelming standalone movie in 2006.
In fact, by the time of JLU, the sheer number of other DC Batman projects resulted in a so-called "Bat-Embargo" where no Batman supporting characters could appear on the show (denying us a planned Barbara Gordon as Oracle episode), even ones like Harley Quinn that the DCAU itself had invented.