Batman Beyond-a live action version of the arse-kicking animated series was considered briefly from what I read in Wizard. The series set fifty years in the future where a bitter ,old Bruce Wayne , long retired as the Batman. Due to suffering a heart attack when trying to get back in the crime fighting game in a suped-up costume with all sorts of bells and whsitles. When a teenager by the name of Terry McGuiness learns that the old guy he saved from a gang of punks was the Batman. He uses the souped up outfit to find he killers of his father. Throughout the series Bruce Wayne acted as his mentor, and back-up from time to time. Talk was that Paul Newman or Charlton Heston was to play Bruce Wayne, and Freddie Prinze Jr. as McGuiness. However, Warner Bros. balked at the price tag for production ,and shelved it.
Also, before Smallville, there were plans for a series featuring Bruce Wayne before he became the Batman in his travels around the world preparing to become the legendary crimefighter he was destined to become. Each episode was to open with Alfred looking through the attic of Wayne Manor, and remembering where Master Bruce obtained a certain object ,and the story behind it. But this series fell through, and the WB went with Smallville instead.
