Kevin Conroy Reveals the True Reason BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES Ended and Weighs in on Ben Affleck's Portrayal

For many, Batman: The Animated Series features the quintessential Batman: Kevin Conroy. When fans are asked who their favorite Batman is, don’t be surprised if Conroy is in their top 3, with chances high that he’ll be number one. If so many love the show and the actor, why did it end after 2-4 years (depending on if you count Batman and Robin as part of BTAS)? Many believe that it was for the same reasons many shows end, the viewership was low or the cast was done. According to Conroy, the reason was neither of those. The reason was simply, the creators were running out of good ideas and didn’t want to write bad episodes. At MCM Comic Con in London, Conroy said:

“They didn’t stop making the shows because the audience wasn’t there or the actors weren’t there, they stopped, really, because the creators ran out of ideas for stories. And they didn’t want to compromise on the quality of what they had and start creating kind of silly stories.

So they go, ‘Look, we gotta go in a whole new different direction.’ So then they went to Batman and Robin, they brought in Robin, that was the next series. Then they went into Batman Beyond, you know, recruiting a young guy. And then it was the Justice League. They were always looking at different ways to re-imagine the characters, just so they can get new storylines. A lot of it had to do with trying to come up with stories that weren’t becoming ridiculous.

But all the actors would love to have done more of them. You could get all those actors back today, in a booth, to do more animated series shows because everyone loved it that much.”

I applaud the creators for not doing what so many seem to do and drag a show out just because it’s doing well. If you don’t have any more good ideas for stories, just stop. Plus, by looking for more great stories we got Batman Beyond which was awesome and Justice League which was amazing.

In addition to this nugget about BTAS, Conroy doubled-down on his approval of Ben Affleck as Batman.

“Well, the one thing I will say about that, and I’m not going to get into commenting on actor’s performances. I don’t know if you’re aware, you probably are, in the Twitterverse and on the Internet, there was a lot of criticism when he got cast. Saying ‘Oh my god! He’s going to be terrible!’ And I was telling people ‘Wait a minute! Give this guy a chance! He’s a good actor. Let’s see what he does with it, you know?’

And I think he surprised a lot of people. He really pulled it off. I thought he was really good. So I’m more in his court than a lot of people are, I guess. I think people gave him a hard time before they even saw what he would do with it. There’s a lot of pre-judging.”

This of course, is him backing up his claim from August, when he said:

“I love seeing all the different takes. I think some of them get Bruce Wayne more than they get Batman, and some of them get Batman more than they get Bruce Wayne. I think Ben Affleck has probably gotten the best balance of the two. He’s a really good Bruce Wayne and a really good Batman.”

Who’s your favorite Batman?

Source: Comicbook