During an interview with IFC to promote his new movie Trespass starring Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman, the discussion turned to director Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies. The director touched on a number of topics, ranging from the failure of Batman and Robin, his envy toward Christopher Nolan and who he thought the best Batman is/was.
We’ll get to that last part in a bit, but first, Schumacher places part of the blame for Batman and Robin’s failure on the studio saying that, "Everyone made so much money with Batman Forever, it was always, 'more, more, more.'"
Schumacher says he broke a personal rule of never doing a sequel to anything adding that people had wanted him to do sequels to St. Elmo’s Fire, Flatliners, Lost Boys and a few other of his movies. He said that he always knew that if you get lucky, walk away but at the time he was working on A Time to Kill and the studio had been very generous to him and much was expected from him by toy manufacturers and the Warner Bros. stores.
He does share blame for the final product though, which became known as the movie that killed the Batman franchise until Christopher Nolan resurrected it with his Dark Knight movies.
Had he gotten his way, Schumacher says that his second Batman movie would have been more in the vein of The Dark Knight.
"I wanted to reinvent the franchise with Val Kilmer as Batman. We brought in Robin and I wanted to make The Dark Knight desperately, but the studio didn’t want that and it’s their money and they’re my bosses."
That been said, Schumacher did vouch for Kilmer, saying he was the best Batman.
"I thought he looked great in the costume and I though he brought depth to the role. I thought the relationship between Val and Nicole Kidman was very sexy. Jim Carrey, of course, was the perfect Riddler. And then I had the great Tommy Lee Jones and a lot of other great people in that movie."
What do you think of Schumacher’s take on the best Batman and what would his version of The Dark Knight has been like?
Derrick Deane, Fandango Content Personnel/Movie Blogger, joined Fandango in 2010, bringing more than 10 years of filmmaking and writing experience with him. While The Godfather, Rear Window and 12 Angry Men are all favorites, he will always have a soft spot for Die Hard, Leon: The Professional and B
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