Bat-ology: The Death of Tim Burton's 'Batman III'

Let's take a break from Star Wars-a-thon, or Ranking the Star Wars movies. I already forget what I called it. Heh. I believe we have "Bat-ology" to still finish too! With Warner Bros' umpteenth reboot of the comic book character on the way in the form of Matt Reeves' The Batman, it's high time we get my remaining opinions on the character and his continuing series of film portrayals out in the open. Fear not! I will catch you up to speed. Entry #1 in Bat-ology, my review of "Batman" from 1989, can be found here, while Entry #2... Returns... can be viewed here. Read these if you haven't or if it's been a while and we'll get you all fifty shades of caught up processing Batman. You may come back when you are all caught up. It's okay, I'll wait. I have a lot of walls to stare at...

*Whistles*

Looking back on alternate history
is weird. Thanks Photoshop.

...welcome back! Well, now that you've graciously taken the time to get caught up, let me just say; it isn't any secret that Batman Returns was a tragically-toned misadventure when it was released to theaters in June 1992. However, much like its predecessor, it was a financial hit, grossing $266 million worldwide. Calm down, Marvel boys, that was a lot of money in the early 90s, and certainly for a comic book movie. While not the pop culture phenomenon that Batman was, appearing on T-shirts, lunch boxes, butt-cheek tattoos and automotive bumper stickers, Batman Returns still also produced a sizable and respectable chunk of change from merchandising as well. It was extremely profitable, which in Hollywood jargon means "WE NEED MOAR". So... why didn't Tim Burton return for another Batman film?

If you've been paying attention to me all this time, as I hope you would (otherwise I just can't sleep at night), Batman Returns alienated a lot of people. A lot of people. Not just the public, but the press too. The Los Angeles Times would print a ton of the hate mail and letters from angry parents received in a column throughout that whole summer, bashing the movie's content and the grotesqueness of their characters, the brutality of the violence and the morbid-ness of the Penguin's devious schemes. Basically speaking, Warner Bros had every right and every intention to make another sequel... but the last thing they wanted was another Batman Returns. This wasn't apparent, though, nor did they want to make the decision right away. They couldn't forget that Tim Burton was ultimately responsible for bringing Batman to the silver screen in a serious light and creating this pop culture phenomenon, so they couldn't just risk cutting ties immediately and going forward with a different director at the helm... at least not at first. So first, they gauged Burton's interest in doing another one.

Burton's sketch for what
Robin would look like.

Burton, meanwhile, following Batman Returns just finished directing a picture for Touchstone called Ed Wood, you might've heard me mention it. It's only my favorite Tim Burton film and one of my top ten favorite movies of all time. Also he produced and storied the stop-motion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas as well. Burton had quickly fast-tracked to become one of Hollywood's most creatively charged people, so having him on board for a third Batman seemed like the right thing to do, creatively speaking. So when initial meetings were held with Warner Bros. and Tim Burton in late '93, early '94 to discuss the third film, what did they want the third one to be about?

Well... according to the internet, that all powerful world of knowledge and porn that we have access to in our pockets, Burton's third Batman film was rumored to either involve the Riddler and Catwoman, or Two-Face and Catwoman. At least Catwoman was going to return, given her obvious survival at the end of Batman Returns. Two-Face seemed like the logical choice, given that Billy Dee Williams portrayed Harvey Dent in Batman, so this would have logically included Williams returning as Harvey Dent and seeing him be scarred, turning him into Two-Face. Dent was already considered as the tertiary villian for Returns, a character arc and involvement that ultimately became the character of Max Schreck, Christopher Walken. The ending of Returns where Schreck is electrocuted and killed by Catwoman's tazer would've been what scarred Dent into Two-Face, thus setting up this film. Still, other rumors persisted for the Riddler, too, detailing that Robin Williams was heavily courted for the role and would've been a usual bizarre "Burton-style" Riddle; rumors often dictate Williams would've shaved a question mark into his hair and portrayed the character using that. Later on into the early discussions phase, Rene Russo was discussed as the film's love interest for Bruce Wayne... a role I assume went would morph into Nicole Kidman's role... Not only that, but Batman wouldn't have been alone for the film. That's right, an idea that was floated was the inclusion of Robin, Batman's boy wonder sidekick; and Tim Burton reportedly wanted to shake things up and cast Marlon Wayans as the character. I dug that idea when I first read it online, such a shame it never came to fruition.

So in spite of all of this planning and speculation, the movie disappeared into the trades abyss of Hollywood somewhere around late '93 and early '94. All these rumors and ideas ultimately went on the wayside when a meeting between Burton and Warner Bros. kind of fizzled out about a half hour into it, where Tim was pitching ideas. Says Tim Burton:

A depitction of Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face
from the unrealized "Batman '89" comic book series

“I remember toying with the idea of doing another one. And I remember going into Warner Bros. and having a meeting. And I’m going, ‘I could do this or we could do that.’ And they go like, ‘Tim, don’t you want to do a smaller movie now? Just something that’s more [you]?’ About half an hour into the meeting, I go, ‘You don’t want me to make another one, do you?’ And they go, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no!’ And I just said, ‘No, I know you!’ So, we just stopped it right there.” - TB

There you have it. The project quickly switched gears and quite honestly, pulled a one-eighty. It turns out that Warner Bros. wanted a more 'toyetic' approach to Batman, a film they could freely market to families with action figures, clothes, and other assorted capitalistic junk for a pretty penny. Honestly, they weren't going to get it with another one from Burton. Batman Returns, while financially successful, was critically questioned. In the fourth part of the 2005 Batman film series documentary, Shadow of the Bat titled "Dark Side of the Knight", screenwriter of Returns Daniel Waters said:

“It’s great. The lights are coming up after Batman Returns, and it’s like kids crying, people acting like they’ve been punched in the stomach, and like they’ve been mugged. Part of me relished that reaction, and part of me to this day is like, ‘Oops.’” - DW

So there you have it, changes had to have been made and made they were. Gone were many of Burton's dark ideas for the third film, styled to be similar in tone to Returns, and Burton himself also departed the project as director, but stayed on as producer. In Burton's place, Warner Bros. would tap director Joel Schumacher, known for directing 80s hits like The Lost Boys, St. Elmo's Fire, and even The Client that same year, in '94. He and Warner Bros. worked to rethink and reimagine the Batman film mythology, deciding to sort of reboot everything, while keeping it story-wise as a sequel to Batman and Batman Returns. Michael Keaton, meanwhile, at stayed on as Batman well into pre-production, even getting fitted for costumes... but despite quite the potential payday of a reported $30 million offer from Warner Bros. to play Batman in the third film, Keaton left the project after disagreeing with the lighter tone and marketable substance the movie aimed for.

So how did the movie turn out? Were all these switching ideologies, fear of bad response, weird films with grotesque characters traumatizing children really worth completely and radically changing everything and revamping the character, his story, the appearance of the film and everything just to make more money on the matter? Stay tuned for the next Bat-ology!