Billion Dollar Batman

by Bruce Scivally

  Following the screening, audiences went down the street to the Old Post Office Pavilion for a post-screening party. Upon entering the Pavilion, guests found that the food court and atrium had been converted into a Batcave with black walls, faux rock formations, glowing bats and a glowing Batsignal. Gingrich, detained by a surprise party to celebrate his 52nd birthday, missed half the film, but told a reporter, “Luckily, I used to read Batman comic books so I figured it out.”

  Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy had more than a passing interest in the film. He had been a Batman fan since he was four years old, when one Sunday after Mass, his parents stopped at a Montpelier, Vermont drugstore and bought him a comic book for ten cents. “I can vaguely picture it,” said Leahy. “One of the scenes had Bruce Wayne down in the Batcave to work on the Batmobile.”180 Through the years, Leahy had become a Batman expert as well as an expert on agricultural issues, defense and foreign affairs. He was even asked to appear in Batman Forever; Leahy can be spotted dancing with a former Miss Vermont in the scene where Two-Face interrupts Edward Nygma’s lavish launch party.181 “My part was very easy,” Leahy said. “It required no talent, no great knowledge, nothing in the way of good looks or natural ability. It was almost the same qualifications as being a member of the U.S. Senate.”182

  BATMAN REVIVED

  Despite the fun that Schumacher had making it, the film opened to mixed reviews. Brian Lowry in Daily Variety said, “An enormous fun-house ride, the second Batman sequel succeeds in some basic levels while coming up short in others. On the plus side, the tone has lightened up after criticism of the last outing, Val Kilmer seamlessly slides into the Dark Knight’s cape and the film boasts considerable action and visual splendor. In the negative column, that action isn’t as involving as it should be, and there are so many characters the movie can’t adequately service them all.”183

  Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman summed up the film by saying, “Watching Batman Forever is a little like spending two hours inside a happy asylum. Just about every character in the movie is undergoing some sort of an identity crisis, yet rather than making the picture feel ‘dark,’ these various schizoid head-cases bounce off each other like brightly colored billiard balls...And the movie itself is a loony-tunes extravaganza in which having a split personality doesn’t constitute a serious emotional trauma so much as it does a fashion statement.”184

  Quentin Curtis, writing in the London newspaper The Independent, said, “Schumacher is a better story-teller than Burton, whose narratives were weighed down by Stygian gloom. Schumacher allows his plots to simmer nicely for a while, before bringing them to the boil. But neither director has much mastery of action scenes...Schumacher has also hit on a more consistent house acting style, half-way between cartoon and realism. Kilmer, taking over from Michael Keaton, has more butch presence, but less neurosis.”185

  In The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Batman Forever is a viable installment in the Batman series, though Joel Schumacher’s flashy direction is messier and less interestingly macabre than Tim Burton’s darkly ingenious films in this genre...High on the list of innovations we didn’t need to see this year: nipples on Batman’s redesigned rubber suit.” Commenting on the film’s over-hyped commercialization, Maslin wrote, “Batman Forever brings on the very secular sensation that you are part of something larger than yourself. Toys, games, comics, videos: each has its place in the cosmos of this multimedia phenomenon, and the consumer’s role is no less well-defined. As for the actual movie, it’s the empty-calorie equivalent of a Happy Meal (another Batman tie-in), so clearly a product that the question of its cinematic merit is strictly an afterthought.”186

  Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers said, “The third Batman epic, with Val Kilmer replacing Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader and Jim Carrey out-mugging Jack Nicholson’s Joker as the rascally Riddler, is a long way from the dark poetry of Tim Burton’s 1989 original. This 1995 version has cleaned up its act...Batman Forever, with Joel Schumacher (The Client) in for Burton as director, goes easy on the mayhem and doesn’t dwell on our hero’s pesky depressive side. Instead, the new film catches the campy innocence of the Batman TV series of the ‘60s. Schumacher’s method is to use a lighter touch, to stay closer to the cartoon that Bob Kane created for DC Comics in 1939 and to temper Burton’s nightmare world with an accessible, brightly colored TV palette.”187

  Jay Carr in The Boston Globe said Batman Forever should have been called Batman Lite, writing, “From beginning to end, it’s a marketing strategy, designed to purge the franchise of the darkness and weirdness that made the first two films interesting, and transform it into something more mainstream-friendly. Unfortunately, it succeeds...It’s saturated with color, but not with daring. It’s a ride, not a nightmare, moved from the realm of dream to the realm of pinball.”188

  Among other unfavorable reviews was one from Steve Murray of The Atlanta Constitution, who wrote, “Director Joel Schumacher gives us a candy-colored Gotham closer to Vegas—or Dick Tracy—than Burton’s morgue-like metropolis...Carrey is the film’s best special effect. In contrast, Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face is a lost opportunity. Great makeup, but his performance is a long rant. Kilmer’s is a long pause. A black-clad blank as both Batman and Bruce, he’s part Ken doll, part Darth Vader. He speaks in such a monotone, you wonder whether his contract came with a no-inflections clause.”189 Philip French in The Manchester Guardian was more harsh, writing, “Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever is the lowest point yet in the hi-tech cycle that began with Superman in 1978. About as entertaining as watching a video game over someone’s shoulder, it is devoid of fun, narrative drive and simple emotional involvement.”190

  Regardless of the reviews, moviegoers were primed to see Val Kilmer’s take on Batman. In its first three days of release, Batman Forever brought in an astounding $52,784,433 at the box office—the biggest three-day opening ever.191 Wall Street responded; the stellar box-office performance helped push Time-Warner’s stock up 6% to a 15-month high of $43.125, adding $950 million to the company’s $16 billion total market worth.192 Ed Mintz, founder of Las Vegas-based audience survey firm CinemaScore, said Batman Forever was the “most wanted-to-see film” of summer 1995.193 After two and a half weeks, the film had raked in $141.8 million, becoming the first film of 1995 to earn over $100 million, and ensuring that it would soon surpass the $162.8 million earned by Batman Returns.194

  When the film opened in Australia, it had the biggest opening day ever for an American film, though in Japan the first-week receipts of $2.2 million represented an 80 percent drop from the revenues that Batman Returns collected three years earlier.195 Nonetheless, the film went on to earn $152.5 million overseas, and $184 million domestically. In the U.S., it was the #2 film of the year, behind Disney’s Toy Story.

  Batman Forever’s toy story was just beginning. By the time the film hit theaters, Batman Forever merchandise was ubiquitous. As with the previous film, Warner Bros. issued more than 130 licenses for Batman Forever toys and products.196 Stores were offering posters, play sets, mugs, notebooks, Batcycles, Batmobiles, Batwings and Batarangs. At Southern California’s Six Flags Magic Mountain, a “Batman Nights” special effects, laser and fireworks show was added to the existing Batman ride and Batman stunt show. The 115 Warner Bros. Studio Stores throughout the country heavily pushed the film for a month before it opened, with scenes from the film playing on the stores’ video walls and clerks wearing Batman Forever tee shirts and buttons.197 The stores were temporarily rechristened “Batman Headquarters.” Clothing designer Todd Oldham created a 21-piece Batman Forever-inspired line called “Todd Oldham Forever” exclusively for Warner Bros. Studio Stores, with items such as bat-shaped belt buckles and hair barrettes, Two-Face-inspired jeans and backpacks (half red zebra stripes, half yellow leopard spots), and $244 velour slip dresses with “emerald” question-mark chains.198 Traffic at the Warner Bros. Studio Stores doubled, with sales almost equaling those experienced during the Christmas ho
lidays.199 Additionally, Batman Boutiques were opened in Sears stores, and displays with Batman Forever merchandise showed up in Toys “R” Us and Kmart stores.200 Time-Warner’s Atlantic Records sold more than a million copies of the soundtrack CD, and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment expected to sell 10 million videos at the end of the year.201 Meanwhile, Warner Books published a novel based on the film, and DC Comics produced a book about the making of the movie.202

  Christopher Bord, a motion picture analyst for media research firm Paul Kagan Associates, saw the renewed Batman mania as a sign of the decline of filmmaking. “What the studios are all trying to do is create a franchise,” said Bord. “They’re not concerned anymore with the creative aspect. They’re trying to sell product. The bottom line is caps and theme park rides.”203

  Bord was correct in his assumption. With the release of Batman Forever, Batman was becoming such a money-making enterprise that no less august a financial publication than The Wall Street Journalreported on its significance. The paper said the film was Time-Warner Inc.’s “biggest synergistic gold mine ever,” expected to generate more than $1 billion in sales of costumes, shoes, toys and countless other licensed products—a figure that excluded merchandise sold in the studio’s own stores. Time-Warner was set to make even more from Batman Forever because, unlike the first two movies, there were no “first dollar gross” participants in the film, meaning that no star received a take of Warner’s own box office receipts. Also, none of the talent got a piece of any of the merchandising, as Jack Nicholson had done with Batman. Time-Warner, according to the Journal, expected Batman Forever to bring in about $300 million in cash flow over a two year period.204

  Batman Forever helped Warner Bros. break a record no other studio had matched. When it passed the $100 million mark overseas in August of 1995, it became the fifth Warners movie to do so that year, a phenomenal record for the studio. The other high-earners were Disclosure, Interview With the Vampire, Outbreak and The Specialist.205

  The film also generated a lawsuit. Minneapolis artist Andrew Leicester brought action against Warner Bros. for copyright infringement over use of his downtown Los Angeles artwork “Zanja Madre” in the Gotham City scenes of Batman Forever. The 47-year-old Englishman, known for his environmental art and outdoor sculptures, said, “I dislike Batman and most of these comic book movies in general.” Batman Forever, said Leicester, was a “continuous sequence of violent acts. It has a weak plot. It is a terrible movie and the affect it has on my artwork is indescribable. It is a nightmare.”

  Besides seeking millions of dollars in damages for the alleged copyright infringement, Leicester also sought an injunction against Warners to halt further distribution of the film. Leicester’s suit claimed the movie had interfered with his artwork and future business opportunities. “Zanja Madre,” the Spanish name for the main channel of the Los Angeles River, was a $2 million art complex in the courtyard spaces at the 24-story 801 Tower building in downtown Los Angeles. The environmental art project included a series of waterworks and miniature skyscrapers. Leicester had won four public art and urban design awards for “Zanja Madre” since finishing the work in 1992. The piece, according to Leicester’s lawsuit, was an “allegorical garden of calm and tranquility,” and the film besmirched it by portraying it as an integral part of an “openly lurid, frenetic and violent Gotham City.”

  Leicester said he first learned Warner Bros. had used his artwork when friends showed him magazine articles featuring color photographs and scale models of “Zanja Madre” used in the production of the film. “I faxed a letter to Warner Bros. on June 3 asking them where they received permission to use my artwork,” said Leicester. “The answer came back: What artwork?” When the studio showed no interest in compensating him, Leicester filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court.206 Leicester sought to show that Warner Bros. did not have the right to take pictures of his work for distribution, and that they had no license to build copies of the structure. The court eventually decided that Leicester had no case, since the sculpture made up part of the building, and the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act of 1990 said that representations of public buildings could be used without specific licenses being granted.207 “Congress intended the American landscape to belong to everyone, including filmmakers producing commercial movies,” said Robert Schwartz of O’Melveny & Myers, who represented Warner Bros. “This decision holds that cities and streets can be freely filmed without fear of being dragged into court.”208

  Val Kilmer became embroiled in legal issues of a more personal nature. Shortly after the film’s release, and just two months after the birth of their second child, he and his wife Joanne Whalley-Kilmer filed for divorce on the grounds of “irreconcilable differences.” The couple, married for seven years and with a three-year-old daughter, separated on July 13, 1995.209

  When Academy Award nominations were announced on Valentine’s Day, 1996, Batman Forever nabbed three nominations, for Cinematography, Sound and Sound Effects Editing. Cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt said, “The morning they announced I was nominated for Batman Forever, I was up and sitting at the kitchen table but I couldn’t bear to listen to the broadcast. I was pretending to be calm, filling in a magazine subscription, when the producer, Peter MacGregor-Scott, called and said I’d gotten the nomination. I woke my wife with champagne, and we began to celebrate. At about 7, my son came into the room. He went to school that day and told everyone his mom and dad had been drinking first thing in the morning.”210 With Batman Forever a bona fide hit, Joel Schumacher was riding high, even if he didn’t feel the film was necessarily representative of his style. “I don’t think Batman Forever is a Joel Schumacher film,” he said. “I think it’s a Batman film. What I did was go back to the source. An enormous variety of Batman comic books have been done between 1939 and now, with different, interesting artists and storylines. Tim’s films were his versions of Batman comic books. This is ours.”211

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  1 Mallory, Michael, “Holy Caped Caper, IV,” Daily Variety, March 5, 1997, p. 50

  2 Nasr, Constantine, producer, “Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight—Dark Side of the Knight,” Batman Returns DVD, New Wave Entertainment, © 2005 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

  3 Weinraub, Bernard, “Director Has Personal Batman Fascination / Profile: Veteran Schumacher, Haunted by Traumatic Childhood, Brings $80 Million Project in on Schedule,” The New York Times, Jun 16, 1995, p. L12

  4 Eller, Claudia, “Burton Partner Di Novi Departs For Solo Career,” Daily Variety, June 3, 1992, p. 8

  5 —, “Pining for Wood,” Weekly Variety, September 28, 1992, p. 99

  6 Cohen, Roger, “The Creator of Time Warner, Steven J. Ross, Is Dead at 65,” The New York Times, Dec. 21, 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/21/obituaries/the-creator-of-time-warner-steven- j-ross-is-dead-at-65.html?scp=2&sq=steve%20ross%20dead&st=cse, accessed Oct. 14, 2011

  7 Weinraub, Bernard, “Director Has Personal Batman Fascination / Profile: Veteran Schumacher, Haunted by Traumatic Childhood, Brings $80 Million Project in on Schedule,” The New York Times, Jun 16, 1995, p. L12

  8 Ibid.

  9 Singer, Michael, Batman & Robin: The Making of the Movie, © 1997 Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, TN, p. 11

  10 Weinraub, Bernard, “Director Has Personal Batman Fascination / Profile: Veteran Schumacher, Haunted by Traumatic Childhood, Brings $80 Million Project in on Schedule,” The New York Times, Jun 16, 1995, p. L12

  11 Busch, Anita M., “’Batman’ Lightens Up,” Daily Variety, May 5, 1995, p. 14

  12 Persall, Steve, “McDonald’s throws a curve with `Batman’ promotions Series: On Screen,” St. Petersburg Times, Jun. 9, 1995, p. 6

  13 Spelling, Ian, “Bat to the Past: Director Hopes to Take ‘Batman Forever’ Back to the Source,” The Sacramento (CA) Bee, Jun 11, 1995, p. EN 20

  14 Fleming, Michael, “If Harlin Helms, Will Arnie Hang On?” Weekly Variety, June 28, 1993, p
. 39

  15 Fleming, Michael, “Dish: Clancy Leaves Par for Savoy ‘Without Remorse,’” Daily Variety, June 17, 1993, p. 43

  16 Weinraub, Bernard, “Director Has Personal Batman Fascination / Profile: Veteran Schumacher, Haunted by Traumatic Childhood, Brings $80 Million Project in on Schedule,” The New York Times, Jun 16, 1995, p. L12

  17 Cagle, Jess, “Gotham City’s New Boss: Joel Schumacher Has Come a Long Way—The ‘’Batman Forever’’ Director Has Made a Name for Himself,” Entertainment Weekly, July 21, 1995

  18 Weinraub, Bernard, “Director Has Personal Batman Fascination / Profile: Veteran Schumacher, Haunted by Traumatic Childhood, Brings $80 Million Project in on Schedule,” The New York Times, Jun 16, 1995, p. L12

  19 Cagle, Jess, “Gotham City’s New Boss: Joel Schumacher Has Come a Long Way—The ‘’Batman Forever’’ Director Has Made a Name for Himself,” Entertainment Weekly, July 21, 1995

  20 Weinraub, Bernard, “Director Has Personal Batman Fascination / Profile: Veteran Schumacher, Haunted by Traumatic Childhood, Brings $80 Million Project in on Schedule,” The New York Times, Jun 16, 1995, p. L12

  21 Cagle, Jess, “Gotham City’s New Boss: Joel Schumacher Has Come a Long Way—The ‘’Batman Forever’’ Director Has Made a Name for Himself,” Entertainment Weekly, July 21, 1995

  22 Weinraub, Bernard, “Director Has Personal Batman Fascination / Profile: Veteran Schumacher, Haunted by Traumatic Childhood, Brings $80 Million Project in on Schedule,” The New York Times, Jun 16, 1995, p. L12