Billion Dollar Batman

by Bruce Scivally

  —Director Joel Schumacher1

  BAT TO THE DRAWING BOARD

  When he came to meet with Warner Bros. executives to plan the next installment of the Batman film series, Tim Burton could sense that the studio was looking to go in a new direction—one that might not include him. In Constantin Nasr’s documentary Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight (on the Batman Forever DVD), Burton recalled, “I’m going, ‘We could do this, we could do that,’ and they go like, ‘Tim, don’t you want to do like a smaller movie now?’... About a half hour into the meeting, I go, ‘You don’t want me to make another one, do you?’...And so we just stopped it right there.”2Entertainment Weekly quoted “a source close to the project” as saying, “Warner Bros. didn’t want Tim to direct. He’s too dark and odd for them.”’ Robert Daly, co-chairman (with Terry Semel) of Warner Bros. said, “Terry and I wanted this Batman to be a little more fun and brighter than the last one. The first Batman was wonderful. The second got terrific reviews, but some people felt it was too dark, especially for young kids.”3

  Burton’s long-term contract with Warners ended with the release of Batman Returns. His co-producing partner, Denise Di Novi, had already left Tim Burton Productions on June 3, 1992, a little more than two weeks before the release of Batman Returns. Di Novi relocated to Columbia Pictures, and it was thought that Burton might join her there. The director decided to put off a decision until the film was released. “I’ll wait until my movie comes out,” he said. “If it’s a big bomb, I’ll have to go scratching to do Police Academy 8.”4 By September, it was announced that Di Novi and Burton had set up their next film, Ed Wood, at Touchstone Pictures.5

  Christmas of 1992 found Warner Bros. a studio in mourning. Steve Ross, who had built the company into the world’s largest entertainment conglomerate, died of prostate cancer on December 20, at age 65. Ross’s co-chief executive, Gerald M. Levin, assumed his title and responsibilities.6 Ross’s death, however, had little direct impact on Warner Bros. film operations, which had long been under the stewardship of Terry Semel and Robert Daly, who were now concerned with turning Batman into a more family-friendly franchise. With Burton off of Batman III, the studio needed a new director to oversee the next entry in the series. They decided to go with one they were already working with, Joel Schumacher. Schumacher’s most recent film at Warner Bros., Falling Down, was a solid moneymaker, plus he had a reputation for dealing coolly with difficult actors while making films that had a definite visual flair.7 “Batman requires an awful lot of style,” said Daly. “We wanted a kind of hip sensibility that we knew Joel had.”8

  Schumacher was in New Orleans filming his adaptation of the John Grisham novel The Client when Warner Bros. studio heads Robert Daly and Terry Semel summoned him to come back to Los Angeles. Schumacher said “I thought, ‘Uh-oh. This is it. They’re firing me.’”9 But when he sat down with the Warner Bros. co-chairmen, he got a surprise. “Bob or Terry, I can’t remember which one, started the discussion by saying they wanted to offer me the corporation’s largest asset,” recalled the director. “They didn’t say, ‘Do you want to make a movie?’ It was very corporate. There was a seriousness to it, and it was kind of naive on my part because I didn’t quite realize I’d be involved in the licensing and marketing, the Kenner toys, the McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Sears, you name it.”10 Indeed, McDonald’s officials, who had been irked when Warner Bros. reneged on their pledge to match media dollars for Batman Returns when the film received negative reactions from parents’ groups,11 would now be allowed to review the script before production began.12

  Schumacher, who read Batman comics as a child, was interested, but told the execs that he wouldn’t do it unless he had Tim Burton’s blessing. “I saw Tim, who’s a friend of mine, and he was very anxious for me to do it,” Schumacher later related to journalist Ian Spelling. “He obviously didn’t want to do it anymore.”13 Schumacher accepted the job during the week of June 14, 1993.14 He normally received $3 million per film, but Daily Variety reported that he was expected to earn at least $5 million for Batman III.15

  Schumacher was an intriguing choice to become the next Batman director. A self-described “American mongrel,” Schumacher was born in Queens, New York in 1939. “My father was a Baptist from Knoxville, Tennessee,” said Schumacher. “My mother was a Jew from Sweden.” When Joel was only four years old, his father died. His mother sold dresses to bring in money for the family, while Joel delivered meat for butcher shops and worked as a volunteer store window dresser. Leaving home at 15, he lied about his age to get a job at Macy’s doing window displays. He then went to Miami, where he began living a fast life and experimenting with drugs. Soon, he was addicted. “I’m lucky to be here,” he said. “I should have been dead 50 times.”16

  Upon returning to New York, he worked as a window dresser at Bendel’s while studying at Parsons The New School for Design and The Fashion Institute of Technology. In the mid-1960s he achieved success with unusual concepts such as a short dress made entirely of mirrors.17 He began hanging out with Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick, and ran the trendy boutique Paraphernalia on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.18 But he was still living recklessly, partying and doing drugs on Fire Island.19

  When his mother, a diabetic, died suddenly in 1965, he was devastated. “I was in a maelstrom. I lived on speed,” said Schumacher. “I can’t remember the number of acid trips I took. This was a period when you thought if you took a lot of drugs and had a lot of sex you could change the world. Well, those who didn’t die became hopeless addicts.”20 By the time he reached 30, years of drug abuse had ruined his career and his health. The 6’3” Schumacher had lost five teeth, weighed only 130 pounds and was $50,000 in debt, $30,000 of which was back taxes. “I wore the same Speedo all summer,” Schumacher told Entertainment Weekly’s Jess Cagle. “Everybody thought it was really sexy, but I was just too stoned to put on clothes... If I had continued shooting up, I’m sure I would have died.” When he “reached the abyss,” Schumacher went out one January morning and buried his syringes in Central Park.21 His friends, including Geraldine Stutz, the former president of Bendel’s, helped him recover. He returned to Bendel’s creating store window displays and rebuilt his life.22 Eventually he went to work for an advertising agency, breaking into commercials by designing a set for a Cool Whip spot.23

  Work on television commercials led to a two-week trial as a costume designer for the film Play It as It Lays (1971).24 Wishing to enter filmmaking, he moved to Los Angeles and found work as a costumer for films like Woody Allen’s sci-fi comedy Sleeper while earning an MFA from UCLA. He got his first directing assignment on television, with The Virginia Hill Story in 1974, covering the same territory that would be mined by Warren Beatty for his 1991 film Bugsy. After his script Car Wash became a film in 1976, he was hired to adapt the Broadway musical The Wiz (1978) into a screenplay. He followed that up with the TV movie Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill (1979), which he both wrote and directed, then made the leap into feature films as director of the 1981 comedy The Incredible Shrinking Woman, starring Lily Tomlin. Throughout the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s, Schumacher directed a diverse array of films, gaining a reputation for crafting hit films on modest budgets with St. Elmo’s Fire (1985), The Lost Boys (1987), Flatliners (1990) and the critically acclaimed Falling Down (1993).

  Schumacher said that when he began preparing for the Batman film, instead of going back and looking at the previous movies, “I called D.C. Comics and got as many comic books from 1939 to the present as I could and immersed myself. I didn’t look at what Tim did and try to be different. I wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to make a living comic book.”25 Though he expected his film to be less bleak than Burton’s, he said, “This isn’t the Care Bears. Batman will always have an edge.”26 The Batman character, Schumacher said, always appealed to him. “He’s not a superhero but a real man with real vulnerabilities. He’s also sexier and cooler than Superman. I mean, let’s face it—a
ny guy who chooses to go out at night dressed like a bat as a vigilante is an interesting and isolating character.”27

  Even before the release of Batman Returns, rumors were circulatng about who would be in the third Batman film. It was a given that Michael Keaton would return as Batman. The actor was reportedly enthusiastic about the hiring of Schumacher. Harry Colomby, a partner in Keaton’s production company, said, “Schumacher can make Batman sexier and more heroic. Burton is not the hero type. His heart beats for the outsider—look at Edward Scissorhands.”’ Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Keaton said, “In the second one I had less input. But we haven’t even scratched the surface on what we can do with [Batman].”28

  With the character of Robin being dropped from the first two installments, it seemed certain that the Boy Wonder would finally appear in Batman III. “I grew up on the Batman character,” said Schumacher, “and there was always Batman and Robin, always.” Schumacher decided to make the Boy Wonder a revenge-seeking heartthrob with a punk music vibe. “Dick Grayson’s story is much more interesting than I’d ever seen it portrayed,” said Schumacher. “Because of the TV series, he was seen as this kind of asexual, cartoony, wholesome airhead. You know, ‘Holy bat smoke!’”29Daily Variety speculated that Marlon Wayans, who had reportedly been signed for the previous film, would finally get a chance to play the role.30

  As for the villain, since three of the Big Four villains most familiar from the TV series—the Joker, the Penguin and Catwoman—had already been used, it seemed the next logical choice for a Bat-menace was the Riddler, and the trades assumed that Robin Williams, having lost out on a chance to be the Joker, would be wearing the Riddler’s green tights.31 Williams told reporters that he looked forward to playing the role, saying, “I loved Batman when I was growing up because we didn’t have Barney then. I am just waiting to see the script, and if it’s right, then I’ll sign on.”’

  At the same time Warner Bros. was beginning development of Batman III, they were also developing a spin-off from Batman Returns—a Catwoman feature they hoped would launch a new action franchise for Michelle Pfeiffer.32 Dan Waters, the Batman Returns scriptwriter, was commissioned to come up with a plotline. Tim Burton expressed an interest in directing, and Denise Di Novi considered taking on the producing chores.33

  In July 1993, while Schumacher busied himself with The Client, the studio proceeded by hiring the husband and wife writing team of Lee and Janet Scott Batchler. The Batchlers initially made their mark in television, with teleplays for The Equalizer (1988) and McGee and Me! (1989). But it was their spec screenplay Smoke and Mirrors, about French magician Robert Houdin being sent to Algeria to expose a sorcerer provoking attacks on French colonials, that got Hollywood’s attention. In March of 1993, the script was one of those lucky few that, sent out to producers for a weekend read, ended up in a bidding war between Paramount, Disney, Tri- Star, Cinergi and Steven Spielberg. Cinergi, in a co-production pact with Disney’s Hollywood Pictures, eventually claimed the script for $500,000, with the writers due to earn an additional $500,000 if a film was produced. Frank Marshall, producer of several Steven Spielberg movies, signed on to direct, and Sean Connery agreed to star. However, after Connery demanded a series of rewrites, the production stalled. Connery eventually moved on, and when Marshall then left for a deal at Paramount to direct Congo, the project was put on the back burner. Still, the script proved that the duo were capable of writing big-budget action, which seemed to make them ideal choices to script Batman III, as Schumacher realized when the Smoke and Mirrors script crossed his desk. “Joel was looking for a tone, and he read our script and said, ‘These are our writers,” said Lee Batchler.34

  In an interview with Ben Yip on the website Brother-Eye.net, Janet Scott Batchler recalled that Tim Burton was involved in the early stages of the script’s development, insofar as he was there to approve his creative successors. The Batchlers met with Burton, telling him, as Janet Scott Batchler recalled, “the key element to Batman is his duality. And it’s not just that Batman is Bruce Wayne. All the villains also have secret identities...And when we said that, Tim just kinda went, ‘Yes!’ And at that point, we pretty much had the job.” Janet Scott Batchler had read Batman comics as a kid, since her local store didn’t carry Wonder Woman. Now, she and her husband Lee read the early comics of Bob Kane and Bill Finger as well as some of the more current comics, including Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns saga. They also read academic papers that psychoanalyzed Batman, which began to give them the idea of creating an analyst character as a love interest, one who, as Janet Scott Batchler said, “might be able to help him walk that dangerous line and keep him on an even keel—hence the name ‘Meridian.’”35

  “We worked out the essentials of the story, and Tim signed off on it,” said Lee Batchler. “Then we flew to New Orleans, where Joel was finishing up on The Client. He wanted us to see him at work and see his directing style. When he wasn’t directing a scene, we were brainstorming Batman. It was a lot of fun. We started with a blank slate and a production start date—a very interesting situation. There was just a general idea—no story, no script. That’s what we had to provide them in 11 weeks.”36

  The studio insisted that they follow the Batman Returns pattern and have two villains. Schumacher already wanted Tommy Lee Jones, whom he had just worked with on The Client, to play Two-Face. The Batchlers were free to use any other villain they chose, and they decided on the Riddler, because they felt “we need a villain that everybody knows.” Since they felt one good villain was enough to drive a movie, the only way they could see accommodating two villains was to split them, with one nemesis for Batman and another for Bruce Wayne. They gave the Riddler a new origin; as Lyle Heckendorf, he’s a WayneTech employee who, snubbed by Bruce Wayne, develops an intense hatred for Gotham’s multi-millionaire industrialist.37 The Batchlers wrote the script with Robin Williams in mind for the Riddler, and assumed that Michael Keaton would be continuing as Batman.

  Joel Schumacher insisted that the Riddler’s costume needed to be motivated, so he came up with the idea of having Lyle Heckendorf steal the costume of a leprechaun fortune-teller at a circus. “Joel started off as a costume designer,” said Janet Scott Batchler. “So costumes matter to him. He pays attention to them, while other directors might not.” Schumacher also wanted to finally introduce Robin into the series. The Batchlers already had an assistant who grew up in the circus, so they quizzed her about circus life and the trapeze.38

  Schumacher had other requirements for the script. “Visuals are very important to him,” said Lee Batchler. “Joel wanted to do a Thunderball moment. We wrote him some underwater shots. He was very excited by the visuals. At one point he said, ‘All I want is this one shot of Batman coming through a wall of flame. You can do anything else you want, but get me that one shot.’ So we wrote a whole sequence setting up and built around that one visual.”39

  The writers never worried about budget as they were developing the script. Lee Batchler said, “There wasn’t one time when they said, ‘Oh, this is too expensive. Forget that.’ It was a case of, ‘Have fun! Go wild! ‘ It was carte blanche as to what you could imagine. And then it was up to the designers to figure out how to do it.”40

  The Batchlers’ script laid out the basic structure of the final film, with very few scenes that were altered or dropped later. To give the screenplay a “bookending” structure, it begins and ends with scenes set at Arkham Asylum. In the beginning, a guard goes to Harvey Dent/ Two-Face’s cell and sees that Two-Face has escaped; the end shows the Riddler straight-jacketed in a cell (in the Batchlers script, he’s called Lyle Heckendorf, not Edward Nygma, the name given to the character in the comic books and in the revised script). Bruce Wayne has dreams of when he was a child, chasing a rabbit and falling into a hole that led to his discovery of the cave underneath Wayne Mansion, and later in the script, after Two-Face and the Riddler raid Wayne Mansion and the Batcave and Bruce is shot, the millionaire temporarily loses
all memory of being Batman.

  One of the strangest scenes in the Batchler script comes after Bruce and Batman have had several encounters with Chase Meridian. One night, she awakens to find Batman on her balcony. She opens the French windows to her terrace and goes to him. Without speaking, they kiss, and she leads him into her bedroom. She goes to remove his mask, but he stops her. The next description reads, “Int. Chase’s Bedroom, Later—Post coital. Chase stands at the window, pulling closed her robe. Batman is before her. She touches his mask.” She asks if the mask ever comes off, and he says no. He then tells her about falling into the hole, confronting the fear of the bat. When she asks, “Who are you?” he says, “I don’t know anymore,” and disappears into the night.

  In his quest to make a lighter-toned film, Schumacher worked with the Batchlers on script revisions. “They’re called comic books, not tragic books,” said Schumacher, “and what we set out to do...was to make a living comic book.”41 When the Batchlers had to return to their earlier commitment at Disney, Schumacher brought in Akiva Goldsman, with whom he was already collaborating on The Client, to continue streamlining the story and smooth it into shape,42 “but the storyline stayed the same all the way through,” said Schumacher.”43 Goldsman, another native New Yorker, was a latecomer to Hollywood. His parents were child psychologists Mira Rothenberg and Tev Goldsman; Goldsman told Geoff Boucher of The Los Angeles Times, “I grew up, essentially, in one of the very first group homes for what was then termed as ‘emotionally disturbed children’—these were days when, unimaginably, childhood schizophrenia and autism were lumped together in the same population. My parents founded this home, and I grew up there in this brownstone in Brooklyn Heights and my peers were, um, crazy. My definition of sanity is very labile; it’s flexible and open.”