In my previous blog I mentioned that Fox Entertainment is making a show based off of a young Bruce Wayne (starting age 12) and that Shadows of the Bat is dead. Well my friends and family don't seem to agree with me on that. So far the response has been unanimous when I ask the question "Should I go forward anyway?" They've all said yes. Kevin Smith has officially announced that he and Paul are no longer pursuing the project and hope beyond hope that they will be invited on to write for the show. The kicker is that he said they no longer own the idea, Fox was able to undercut them because DC actually owns the rights to the characters and Fox simply moved faster than them to secure it.
Here's my dilemma. I could legally move forward on this project under the banner of fan fiction. After all this would be DC fan fiction, not Fatman on Batman fan fiction. However since I'm basing this on Kevin Smith and Paul Dini's ideas I really feel its important to give them credit in some form. That could be a "Based on the ideas of Kevin Smith and Paul Dini" in the credits or author's comments somewhere. It could also be following up on my original plan of trying to meet Kevin after the Hollywood Babble-On show on my birthday and informing him of my intentions prior to releasing anything. Most likely he would just dismiss the idea but in the end if I wanted to go forward he wouldn't really be able to stop me. Fox might IF they ever heard about it but I'm small potatoes so I find that unlikely. At the end of the day though, this is not my original idea. Its a story crafted from tidbits of ideas that came from Kevin and Paul. The story line is mine, the character development is mine and even to a certain extent the world it is based in is mine since most of the story takes place in the school. Despite all that I still feel like I'd be stealing the idea from Kevin and Paul and that makes me pause.
This is a story that needs to be told and it needs to be done well. No focus groups, no advertisers telling me or anyone else what they'll pay for, no marketing "guru" bitching an whining about what they won't be able to sell. Just pure Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent and Selina Kyle teaming up and traveling on a journey together that will determine the course of their fictional lives. I see this under the control of Fox and the first thing that comes to mind is Beware the Batman a show that Cartoon Network has canceled after only 12 shows for reasons that are flimsy at best. Will Fox's show suffer a similar fate or will it bend to the big money misogyny that currently rules the entertainment industry? Only time will tell. The future of Shadows of the Bat is far more uncertain.
