While Fate continues to offer warning to Broadway’s troubled, U2-penned Spider-Man musical—most recently by whispering, “Save yourself” in Alan Cumming’s ear—an undaunted Warner Bros. and DC Comics have begun working on a touring Batman show tentatively titled Batman Live. (What, no exclamation point? Are we supposed to be excited or not?) But rather than a musical, this will be an “elaborate arena production aimed at kids and families” with a script written by fan favorites Alan Burnett and Stan Berkowitz—who have worked together on Batman Beyond, Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm, and myriad other well-received DC Universe stories—so there’s no reason to worry about any sort of Andrew Lloyd Webber-style ballads from Killer Croc, for one thing. Although there’s no concrete timeline for the show’s debut yet, one "scenario" has it arriving just after Christopher Nolan’s (presumed) 2012 Batman movie, and another has it opening in 2011. Considering Nolan’s movies tend to hew toward the series’ morally gray, “what separates the vigilante from the criminal?” themes, and a family-friendly arena show will most likely sidestep a lot of that in favor of more choreographed fight scenes, keeping them separate might be the best bet.
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