Keaton's Batman Returns

Listen to me: Let's go back and show them what we're capable of. We have to end it on our own terms - with a grand gesture. Flames. Sacrifice. Icarus. You hear me? You can do it. You are...Batman!!

It's been a week since this rumor began, so it's safe to offer my take on it. I'm in favor of it, because I think it's indicative of a new wave of films coming our way featuring all the familiar characters...it's not clear if it will happen, but I can picture what they might have in mind...and it looks like it could be a lot of fun.

Michael Keaton is "in talks" to reprise his role as Batman and co-star alongside Ezra Miller in The Flash. This would not be a new take on the character - Keaton would be literally playing an older version of Batman in the 1989 Batman film directed by Tim Burton, albeit with the manic edge that sets his Batman apart from other portrayals. The plot of this new movie would be that the Flash accidentally enters an alternate universe after traveling back in time to prevent the death of his mother by Professor Zoom, the Reverse-Flash. The Flash ends up in an alternate reality where he temporarily retains his old memories but has no powers and the nearest superhero in existence that he recognizes is Batman...only to discover that this Batman is not the Batman he knows.

This plot was inspired by the DC Comics mini-series Flashpoint, which was adapted into an animated, direct-to-video film and was the launch pad for the New52 line-wide relaunch/reboot of all the DC Comic books almost a decade ago. When fans on social media learned that Christina Hodson's screenplay was going to be based on this film, they didn't expect how loosely it would be adapted. In the original storyline, the Batman whom Barry Allen (The Flash) encounters is not Bruce Wayne, but Thomas Wayne, Bruce's father. In this alternate world, Bruce is killed by a petty thief with a gun, while his mother Martha is also shot, but survives, only to go insane and become The Joker of that universe. Fans assumed these characters were going to be reprised by Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan, who had previously appeared (briefly) as Thomas & Martha Wayne in Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I admit this would've been interesting, but what's being cooked up sounds much more enticing...or, in the words of Birdman:

A billion (dollars) worldwide, guaranteed!

The inspiration for having an older version of Batman is based on 2 very popular takes on the character in comics and on television: Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Batman Beyond. Both depicted an aged Bruce Wayne, floating between 60 and 80, attempting to continue his crusade against crime either through updated gadgets & costumes or grooming a replacement. The role Keaton would play is that of Batman as a mentor figure, a Merlin/Obi-Wan Kenobi passing along everything he's learned, while still having a part to play in the battlefield. It has the potential to be a very lucrative role for Keaton, currently 68, yet looking a lot more fit than Iain Glen, who played a different version of an older Bruce Wayne in Season 2 of the DC Universe streaming series Titans, is eight years younger than Keaton, yet looks older than Keaton..

   I mean no disrespect, but...yeah.

Hodson's script for The Flash could still be following the bare bones outline of the plot, but I am going to speculate that the story will be getting more of it's energy from a subsequent story that teamed Batman & The Flash - The Button, a simple mystery story, created as a set up for Doomsday Clock, but the film may not need follow that..unless they might want to set that up, but there's no hint of that. The point is, it's Batman & The Flash teaming up to stop Professor Zoom from destroying the universe with time travel paradoxes. It's not clear if fellow superhero Cyborg is still involved in the plot, but he could be handy with a lot of the technological plot contrivances. 

At heart, it's clear that the film is going to be about the Flash learning that Zoom killed Barry's mother and framed his father with the crime, creating the impetus for Barry to travel back in time to try changing this outcome and accidentally enter a parallel universe, which is revealed to be the universe of the 2 Batman films directed by Tim Burton, albeit 31 years later. He meets the older Batman of that world, who helps him get his powers back (perhaps with help from Cyborg?), then helps Barry stop Zoom from using the paradoxical gateways to destroy the whole multiverse. When Barry returns to his proper timeline...it could end either way. The original comic ended with him in a newly-readjusted reality, so you'll see Keaton's Batman show up and say, "Glad you made it back, Barry", or they might want to end it with the updated Burtonverse established in case Ben Affleck might want to come back and do that version of The Batman that he had planned to do a few years ago...

The conceit of establishing the existence of a multiverse in the DC Films allows for every project in play to matter and be included. When the CW network adaptation of Crisis On Infinite Earths, featuring all the characters from live-action TV series with the DC Comics superheroes available aired this past winter, nobody anticipated that would be a test run for something more ambitious with the films. Warner Brothers' new owners, AT&T, is the main straw stirring this drink that's being concocted, but it depends a lot on specific things happening to work. For starters, Zack Snyder's Justice League has to be the success that people are beginning to believe it will be. Second, the "talks" with Keaton have to be a success. It could involve him recieving "points on the back end" of The Flash and 2 other projects that are also linked to the discussion - Batgirl and Batman Beyond.

A few months back, I had fun speculating on what the plot of Christina Hodson's top secret Batgirl screenplay could be about, but it was based on the idea that Batman might not appear in it. If the deal succeeds, Keaton's Batman will appear in this. Some fans speculated that this meant we were getting Batgirl Beyond, but it could be 2 different things.. it did remind me that Batman & Batgirl teamed-up once in the comics to fight Dr. Phosphorus - the visual inspiration for Batman Beyond's Season 1 villain Blight:

And...I'm still rooting for Lily Collins to be cast as Batgirl/Barbara Gordon...in this case, I can see her playing off Michael Keaton really well.

It's alleged that if Batgirl is the whip cream on this milkshake, Batman Beyond is going to be the cherry on top - first alleged to be a series on HBOMax, but now alleged that AT&T wants it to be a movie. This is the one where Bruce Wayne is a mentor to Terry McGuiness, a teenager who is later revealed to be his son in Justice League Unlimited via DNA rewriting courtesy of government agent Amanda Waller.

This milkshake was given sprinkles with an additional rumor that executives at AT&T want Johnny Depp in this movie as The Joker. Effectively, this Batman Beyond movie would be taking cues from the most famous (and popular) story of that series - Return of The Joker:

Where am I getting these rumors from? The same place everyone else gathers rumors from - YouTube. I had first read the rumor about Keaton from Twitter, with the link to the article from The Hollywood Reporter, but the speculation about the plot of The Flash is my own. The Batman Beyond rumors, including the desire from AT&T to get Depp as The Joker - comes from the Midnight's Edge YouTube channel. All of these sources stress that these plans depend upon a deal with Keaton, who is suddenly getting the most attention he's ever had since the last time he played Batman onscreen. This will be fun to keeps tabs on to see what develops.

You're a movie star, man! You're a global force! Don't you get it? We'll make a comeback. They're waiting for something huge. Well, give it to them. Shave off that pathetic goatee. Get some surgery! 60 is the new 30, motherf---er! You're the original. You paved the way for these other clowns. Give the people what they want. A billion worldwide, guaranteed!..this is where you belong.

Joel Schumacher, R.I.P.

After battling Cancer for a year, film director Joel Schumacher passed away this week at the age of 80. It should be noted that nobody has anything bad to say about him as a person or filmmaker, except for his work on 2 Batman movies in the 1990s, but those films did not destroy his career - people in Hollywood liked working with him; he wasn't a tyrant or a creeper-predator; the working atmosphere was professional, yet easygoing. Studio executives liked how he got big-budget blockbusters completed on time, which might explain how the Batman film franchise fell onto his lap after Tim Burton was bought out after Batman Returns had underperformed, yet he would be credited as a producer for a 3rd Batman film that has none of his fingerprints, yet mimicked his wavelength. 

Barbara Ling's art direction/production designs are the real stars of these two movies. The Gotham City designed by Anton Furst and preserved by Bo Welch in Batman Returns is infused with loud splashes of neon lights & colors that are reminiscent of 90's Batman comic book covers, particularly the painted Shadow of The Bat covers by Brian Stelfreeze

I'll admit I don't like a lot of the casting choices in Batman Forever. In the title role, Val Kilmer looks the part, but I think he would've been more interesting as Two-Face; as Bruce Wayne/Batman, he's serviceable, but bland - he can't put to use any of the acting quirks that made him popular in Real Genius, Top Gun or The Doors. It doesn't help that in most of his scenes, he has to try playing off equally bland Nicole Kidman and Chris O'Donnell, each turning in their worst performances; O'Donnell is miscast - too old to play a newly-orphaned minor who becomes a Ward of the state, with a wealthy bachelor looking the same age as him appointed his legal guardian, plus he tries too hard to make Dick Grayson look cool, making him obnoxious and nebulous (why was he winking at Alfred?), or, as Kevin Smith observed, "He looks like a gay hustler!" Kidman fares worse. HornyAF "psychiatrist", Dr. Chase Meridian. Essentially Vicki Vale in all but name only, all of her scenes are boring, though she looks fantastic. I think her character was inspired by Dr. Shondra Kingsolving, who appeared in the Knightfall/Knightquest storyline, was Batman's love-interest at the time, plus healed him of his paralysis after getting injured by Bane. I don't know if Schumacher might have wanted Halle Berry to play Chase, because Berry was at the height of her popularity around that time and would probably have been more interesting, but wasn't available, whereas Kidman was, so they changed the character's name to "Chase Meridian". This is just speculation on my part, because Chase only exists in this film. Regardless, I only liked her in this image that was used as a large movie poster that appeared on subway platforms:

   It's like we're in her apartment..

Forever was Jim Carrey's movie. His performance was too similar to his work in Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, so it was kinda rote, but when Carrey is on, his performance "Carrey-s" every movie he's in, which is handy when the script is weak and  the supporting cast is made up of jobbing actors (he really keeps Sonic The Hedgehog jumping), plus timing is everything - Batman Forever dominated the summer of 1995.

And I can't really talk about the success of Batman Forever without mentioning the pop soundtrack, bookended by 2 songs in particular - U2's Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me and Seal's Kiss From A Rose - the music videos for both songs were played in heavy rotation on MTV and radio stations throughout that summer and became 90's pop smash singles. Another successful element of Schumacher movies is that there was usually tie-in soundtrack. Even Batman and Robin had a successful album, frontline by The Smashing Pumpkins' The End Is The Beginning Is The End:

The success of Forever put Batman and Robin on the fast track for a 1997 release, but Schumacher, reflecting on this decision in 2007 on a DVD documentary, felt the rushed production schedule didn't account for the audience feeling saturated by the marketing of Forever, so the 4th film was going to suffer because the demand wasn't quite there and it could've benefited from a 1998 release. I guess they liked the script they had..there are hints that Schumacher had more pressing concerns.

Val Kilmer had bailed out, so they needed a new leading man. George Clooney was trendy from his work on ER and From Dusk Till Dawn with Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez, plus he had signed on to play The Green Hornet in a film that was still in development, so that meant he would be interested in playing a superhero movie, so he ditched the Green Hornet in favor of the batsuit. His performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman felt like he was still playing Dr. Doug Ross from ER as Batman, but he has more personality than Kilmer. Chris O'Donnell is still stuck in a thankless role as a block-headed Dick Grayson, but his scenes don't drag the film down. Alicia Silverstone has even less to do as a new character, Barbara Wilson, who becomes Batgirl because she's Alfred's niece and he somehow, someway, anticipated her discovering the Batcave and made her a costume months in advance. And that's it.

 I like how they were drawn in the 

 Bruce Timm style for tie-in kids'

 books. This was from a sticker

 album book.

There's more comedy than usual. According to urban legend, the late Dennis O'Neil, the writer most credited with depicting Batman as a serious Pulp Action/Adventure-Detective after the 1966 Adam West Batman TV series played him mostly for laughs, attended a screening of Batman and Robin with other employees from DC Comics, and allegedly screamed in horror at the scene where Clooney, in Bat-costume, whips out the Bat-credit card:

   "Don't leave home without it."

Heh, heh, heh... 

23 Years Later...

    "Don't leave home without it."

...I'm sure Denny would've signed up for one if he was still around..he had a sense of humor. In retrospect, I find his Batman stories to be pretty jolly!

This film also had added pressure from marketing/licensing executives, who wanted the movie to be more "Toyetic", a term Schumacher had never heard before in his life. The order from the men in suits was clear: at every opportunity, this film was going to be a toy commercial. Lots of costume changes and vehicles, here, but that doesn't stop the toy designers from coming up with more for their product line...

  "The average kid owns 10       Batman action figures!"

My favorite performance in this is Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mister Freeze. Yes, I said it! 

              "Everybody chill!"

I like how they tried incorporating the pathos of the "Heart of Ice" Mister Freeze that was introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, but they still want him to act like a stand-up comic. Those contradictions make him interesting...even more like an apropos Batman villain than before because, like Batman, he is also a genius who uses gadgets & vehicles and has a sense of humor, but also like Batman he's acting in a state of bereavement because his wife Nora is lost, but there's a chance he can bring her back, which means he's still in the mood to deliver cheesey icebreakers..and his sense of humor had better stay healthy, judging from how successful efforts at reviving Nora Fries sometimes end with an ironic punchline...

           You're as cold as ice...

Batman and Robin underperformed on its opening weekend at the box office, but it made money. The studio wanted Schumacher to do a 3rd Batman film - what would've been the 5th movie in the franchise. For a long time, the title was believed to be Batman Triumphant. The screenwriter for this film, Mark Protosevich, claims this is incorrect; the title of this film would've been Batman Unchained:

   I like "Triumphant" better, largely

   because someone went to the

   trouble of designing this logo.

Few people have seen or read the completed screenplay, but those who have claim the plot was darker, more ambitious in complexity than any Batman film before it. It seems to me like it was inspired by the Arkham Asylum graphic novel, but also by a handful of episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, because the main villains were going to be The Scarecrow & Harley Quinn. The plot also features an extended "nightmare" sequence that would've featured cameos from all the Batman villains featured in the last 4 movies, which means Jack Nicholson, Danny Devito, Michelle Pfeifer, Jim Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones, Uma Thurman, Arnold Schwarzenegger - they'd all be back. It was supposed to be a finale to the 90's Batman movies and a chance at redemption for Schumacher, who was very aware of the negative reviews. It would've most-likely been filmed in late-1998 then released either in December 1999 or Summer 2000, which would've put it in competition with the first film in the X-Men film franchise. That would've been...interesting. And it's still 5 years until Christopher Nolan reboots the series with Batman Begins, so there's room to breathe.

Instead, Schumacher bailed, claiming years later that he didn't have the enthusiasm, but more likely he didn't want to try and compete for the affection of people on internet message boards. He had a comeback with films like Tigerland and Phone Booth, plus a very lavish, yet poorly cast adaptation of the musical version of The Phantom of The Opera, but those 2 Batman movies became the movies of his career, the ones that will be synonymous with him...Forever.

And honestly, they're not bad. Oh, they're not the greatest Batman movies ever made, but there are worse superhero movies you could see on a weekend afternoon. They're light popcorn Batman movies. Plus, that car can drive up walls! It was fabulous!

         Joel Schumacher, R.I.P.

Dennis O'Neil, RIP

We lost a legend over the weekend - Writer/Editor Dennis O'Neil (aka, Denny O'Neil) passed away. A former newspaper reporter, O'Neil began writing comics near the end of the Silver Age in the mid-to-late-60's and became a beloved mainstay thereafter. My introduction to him was a memorable 2-part episode of Batman: The Animated Series he had written titled "The Demon's Quest", which reintroduced to a new generation of Batman fans a villain he had co-created with artist Neal Adams in the 70's: seemingly immortal criminal mastermind Ra's Al Ghul:

 Is it pronounced "Raysh" or "Razz"? That's an old debate...

This adventure was atypical of any Batman cartoon or movie we had seen before. More like Indiana Jones, The Spy Who Loved Me or Casablanca. Batman's world opened up.  If your knowledge of Batman came from the live-action movies by Tim Burton, the TV series with Adam West or the Superfriends, you would think this was an experiment, but this did solidify Ra's as a top-tier Batman villain in a way that the comics never did. This episode, plus subsequent appearances in the series became the definitive portrayal of the character and he appeared in more comic book stories by other writers & artists in the decades that followed, including new stories written by O'Neil, like Birth of The Demon, which revealed the origin of Ra's, and Greg Rucka & Klaus Janson's Batman: Death and The Maidens. He also became one of the main villains in Christopher Nolan's trilogy of Batman films, played by Liam Neeson.

I met Dennis O'Neil at BigAppleCon in New York in 2004. I was actually surprised that there wasn't a long line of people to see him, but in retrospect, I recall that this was at a time when people thought the years when he was in charge were creatively limiting and the Bob Shreck-edited era of Batman comics was better, but tastes have changed since then. We didn't speak much beyond exchanging simple, polite dialogue: "Hi - signing books?" "Sure." "Okay...these are great. Thank you. It was nice meeting you!" I was impressed by how simple it was to get an autograph (and he didn't charge for it either), but then again, I had just 5 comics for him to sign (1 Batman, 1 Brave and The Bold, 1 DC Comics Presents, 1 The Shadow, 1 Further Adventures of Indiana Jones), though some artists are known to act as though they're handed everything & the kitchen sink, then whip out their calculator and start carrying decimals. No..."Denny", if I can call him Denny, was professional to the fingertips.

I have my own theory that prototypes of Ra's, his daughter Talia and the enigmatic demonic bubble bath known as The Lazarus Pit made a preliminary appearance in "The Secret of Waiting Graves!" - the first solo Batman tale he worked on with Neal Adams:

This one, along with "Daughter of The Demon!" are my favorites of the Batman tales he wrote. O'Neil's writing reminds me a lot of Stan Lee in that they're heavily influenced by tropes found in genre fiction, but there's an effort to achieve a sense of realism - characters talk and react to things that are happening to them the way that we know people would act in real life, a lot of the action is from a street-level, even in trips to exotic locations. The villains', supporting cast and even the city the heroes lived and operated in would be fleshed out to be less one-dimensional. Gotham City was the only fictional city/location in DC Comics that was starting to feel like a real place. Whereas Stan Lee's plotting style was inspired by soap opera, O'Neil's storytelling was inspired by a combination of his background in journalism, a casual knowledge of Pulp adventure/mystery/horror comics/magazines, and a genuine interest in theories about social issues, folklore & mythology and philosophy, particularly Zen Buddhism in The Question.

 This was a prose paperback.       novel that was published in 2006. It's a nice encapsulation of the 1980's comic book and works as a novelization of a "Question" movie that never happened but could work as inspiration for one.

 Another prose novel - this one retells the origin of Kyle Raynor becoming a Green Lantern, but without the 1990's excess. Under O'Neil's word processor, Kyle's origin is more contemplative and metaphysical - a "vision quest". 

These iconic images from his run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow with Neal Adams still resonate today:

Although he wasn't shy about writing characters with phenomenal powers, like Superman, The Shadow, Shazam and the Justice League, he was more at home crafting stories about characters who he could understand or relate to on some basic level of humanity: Batman, Green Arrow, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man, The Question, Azrael...someday, the 100+ issues Denny wrote of Azrael, Agent of The Bat will be re-evaluated, because I am convinced that Jean-Paul Valley was Denny's alter-ego, a reflection of his knowledge and thoughts on himself, of heroes & identities and the state of the world, particularly in the late-1990s.

A lot of really great Batman comics were made during the 15-year period in which he was the editor of Batman books at DC Comics...there was a consistent quality to them that we haven't seen before or after in any superhero comics before or after. When he stepped down and retired from editing, he wrote The DC Comics Guide To Writing Comics, a valuable resource when, even today, there are little or no books available specializing in the craft of writing a professional script...and it's his approach to it, really. It's literally a Magnum opus.

The book is out-of-print, but worth seeking. Within the last decade, DC has been compiling reprints of older Batman stories by various writers and artists in lavish hardcover editions under the title of Tales of The Batman/Legends of The Dark Knight. Denny's work with Neal Adams on Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow has been reprinted several times, his work on Spider-Man was recently collected in 2 volumes under the  Marvel Masterworks line, but he has told many other Batman tales with other artists that would best be seen again in a Tales of The Batman: Dennis O'Neil series. While it's a pity that it wasn't done during his lifetime, I'm sure that's an oversight that will be corrected soon.

Dennis O'Neil, R.I.P.