Credit: Inside the MagicFor years, a bizarre rumor has circulated among Disney fans: the Mouse House secretly owns the rights to Batman and is preventing Warner Bros. Discovery and its subsidiary DC Studios from bringing the Caped Crusader to television.
The origins of this particular Disney-Batman rumor are difficult to discover for certain, but it appears to be widespread enough that fan podcasts regularly discuss it, and an extended subReddit thread rages back and forth as DC partisans try to figure it out.
It appears the argument behind Disney quietly owning a big piece of the rights to The Dark Knight hinges primarily on the fact that, as a character, Batman has rarely appeared on television since the comedic Batman series starring Adam West and Burt Ward in the 1960s. Though the show only lasted three seasons (and a feature film), it made an outsized impact in pop culture and, to many, is still one of the definitive portrayals of the character.
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Two things reinforce the idea that Disney owns the TV rights to Batman because of the Adam West show: it originally was broadcast on ABC, a network owned by Disney, and it was produced by 20 Century Fox, the studio that was purchased by Disney in 2019. The general belief here seems to be that because the first network Batman show aired on a Disney channel and was produced by a company now owned by the Mouse, some rights must have defaulted to it.
It also does not help for the sake of the rumor that Batman: The Animated Series, the show created by Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski and starring the late Kevin Conroy, initially aired on Fox Kids, further lending some credence that the Disney-Fox acquisition had an impact on the character. Gotham, a show featuring Bruce Wayne as a child, also aired on the Fox Network.
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However, DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has stepped in to put a hopefully definitive end to the rumor. In a post on Threads, Gunn responded to a post asking, ” is it true Disney owns the rights to Batman on TV which is why he’s never really shown up on a TV show since the Adam West Show? Which is why all we’ve ever gotten is Bruce Wayne on TV or mentions of Batman? Thanks”
Post by @jamesgunnView on Threads
In his typically succinct way, James Gunn responded: “No. Very strange rumor.”
The licensing rights to any decades-old character like Batman are always bound to get complicated, particularly as mega-companies like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery purchase other studios and acquire as much recognizable IP as they possibly can. But let’s hope that we can take James Gunn at his word this time and lay this strange rumor to rest.
What’s your favorite Batman television show? Tell us in the comments below!