Warner Bros. is remastering Batman: The Animated Series, the beloved 1990s cartoon series featuring the Dark Knight, for Blu-ray in 2018, the company announced today.
The news came during a New York Comic Con panel this afternoon marking the 25th anniversary of Batman: The Animated Series, which premiered Sept. 5, 1992, on Fox. The panel featured series co-creator Bruce Timm; recently retired producer Alan Burnett; Tara Strong, the voice of Barbara Gordon and Batgirl; and Kevin Conroy, the voice actor behind Bruce Wayne and Batman.
Gary Miereanu, a Warner Bros. representative, held up a DVD box set of Batman: The Animated Series as a giveaway for the Q&A portion of the panel. He then announced that this would be the last time Warner Bros. would be giving away a set on DVD — because a remastered Blu-ray version of the acclaimed series is scheduled to be released “later in the year” in 2018.
There’s no word yet on whether the remaster will be released only on Blu-ray, or if it will come to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray as well. It’s also unclear at this point if the company will put out individual Blu-ray packages for the same four “volumes” in which it released the DVD sets, or if it will only release one Blu-ray set for the 85-episode original series plus the 24 episodes of The New Batman Adventures. (The latter episodes were released as “Volume 4” of the DVD sets.) We’ve reached out to Warner Bros. for more details, and we’ll update this article with any information we receive.
Collectors often bemoan Hollywood’s tendency to “double-dip” with multiple home video releases for movies and TV shows. But it’s been a long time since Batman: The Animated Series debuted on DVD. Warner Bros. originally released the first volume in July 2004, and followed it up with the subsequent three volumes in 2005.
Correction: This article originally said that Warner Bros. has not released any animated titles on 4K Blu-ray. However, Batman and Harley Quinn is one title that's available on 4K Blu-ray. In addition, Melissa Gilbert was the original voice actress for Barbara Gordon/Batgirl. We've edited the article to reflect this.