Though DC oddly seems to forget about this every single time that it happens, each direct-to-video animated movie that it releases inadvertently spoils what the next direct-to-video animated movie will be about. It happened when The Killing Joke DVD revealed the existence of Justice League Dark, and now the Batman & Harley Quinn DVD that comes out next month seems to have named Gotham By Gaslight as the next DC animated movie. That comes from a sharp-eyed Reddit user (via ComicBook.com), who somehow spotted the back cover of the Batman & Harley Quinn DVD and noticed a preview for Batman: Gotham By Gaslight listed in the special features.
For those who aren’t familiar with the original story, Gotham By Gaslight was a one-off Batman story from Brian Augustyn and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. It was released in 1989, and though it predates the official label, it’s considered to be the first of DC’s “Elseworlds” books—a name given to non-canonical stories that typically take place in the alternate realities of DC’s sprawling Multiverse. Specifically, Gotham By Gaslight takes place in the 1800s, and it features a Victorian-era Batman hunting down Jack The Ripper.
Assuming this isn’t some elaborate con, perhaps this will open the door for DC to start adapting more Elseworlds stories, like the Soviet-themed Superman: Red Son, Alex Ross and Mark Waid’s excellent Kingdom Come, or Mike Mignola’s own The Doom That Came To Gotham.