The studio became aware of the illegal shenanigans on October 15, when an Inside Edition telecast included secretly videotaped behind-the-scenes footage of Clooney, Elle Macpherson, Uma Thurman and Chris O’Donnell. When officials contacted the show to see how they’d obtained the footage, producers at Inside Edition refused to reveal the source.
What then followed was old-fashioned detective work and a sting operation that would have made the Dark Knight detective proud. Working with Warner Bros. security, director Joel Schumacher, producer Peter Macgregor-Scott and other Batman staff analyzed the footage shot on the days when the illegal videotaping occurred and crosschecked the faces of people who had appeared in both scenes. After also checking official behind-the-scenes photographs, they picked out one person whose activities on the set were suspect. They then set up the sting, with Arnold Schwarzenegger as bait. Knowing that the culprit would return for Schwarzenegger’s first day on the set on October 19, they circulated a photo of the suspect and hired extra security, which posed as members of the crew. When the man was spotted, Macgregor-Scott and other crewmembers kept tabs on him, while the studio exits were sealed off. When he was apprehended, he was identified as having worked on the lot previously as a stand- in for Matt LeBlanc on Friends. In his pockets, the man had a note that read, “Batman only—$35,000” and a phone number. He had a 35mm still camera stashed in his sock with exposed prints inside, and he was wearing a hat that appeared to be wired for use with a video camera, though no camera was found. When his accomplice was nabbed, she had several 8mm cassette cases marked “Batman & Robin” and “George Clooney,” and there were several rolls of film in her car, as well as a walkie-talkie and a power pack from the Batman & Robin set. She also had ID cards, including five driver’s licenses with different names. Burbank Police arrived later to take the culprits into custody, and a preliminary hearing was set for December 16. The studio began preparing a civil case, and urged federal authorities to press charges of criminal copyright infringement and theft of trade secrets.166 In a press conference held to announce the arrests, Schumacher said, “As long as people are willing to pay a lot of money for anything illegal, people are going to do it.”167
As Thanksgiving approached, the cast and crew celebrated the 80th birthday of Michael Gough on the set on November 23rd.168 With the season of gladness and good tidings approaching, Joel Schumacher decided it was time to bury the hatchet with CAA. He returned to his old agency during the first week of December.169
At the end of January, a few weeks before Batman & Robin wrapped up
shooting, George Clooney took a lunch break from ER to play some basketball on the Warner Bros. lot.170 The actor often played pick-up games with Chris O’Donnell, Dean Cain of TV’s Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, ER’s Eriq La Salle, and hair stylist Waldo Sanchez. On this particular day, the over-worked actor took a spill, spraining his ankle and tearing some ligaments.171 He was taken immediately to Northridge Hospital for treatment and released,172 but worked in pain and on crutches during the last two weeks of shooting.173
At the end of February, even though Clooney was continuing his boycott of Entertainment Tonight, the TV newsmagazine won the exclusive first rights to air the full 2-1/2 minute trailer for Batman & Robin. Joel Schumacher, who was interviewed by the program, made the decision to let them debut the trailer.174 When screenwriter Akiva Goldsman saw it, he was taken aback by its comedic tone. “Unless I’ve totally lost my perspective, this movie isn’t funny,” said Goldsman. “Oh, it has its lighter moments, but I don’t think it’s funnier than Batman Forever. If anything, I think this movie is more consistent tone-wise. We had a tendency on Batman & Robin to find an emotional pitch and stay with it.”175
Marc Shapiro of Starlog magazine visited the set on the last day of filming at the Batcave set in the Long Beach Seaport Dome in early February 1997. He found a very relaxed set, although producer Peter Macgregor-Scott was exasperated by the rumors that were already swirling about Batman 5. “Howard Stern as the Scarecrow! Jeff Goldblum as the Scarecrow! Just give me a break!” said Macgregor-Scott.176
One of the last scenes filmed was Bruce Wayne’s confrontation with Dick Grayson in the Batcave. George Clooney hobbled onto the set on crutches, which he handed off to an assistant before cameras rolled. After doing the master shots, Schumacher shot close-ups of Clooney and O’Donnell, then officially released them from the picture.177 For Clooney, it meant the end of six months of working seven days a week. “Doing Batman & Robin was more fun than I ever thought,” said Clooney. “The crew, better than I ever thought. The cast, nicer than I ever thought. I was a little bit intimidated by working with such a giant group of people on a production of this size. I recall standing on a tremendous set on one of my first days of shooting, and telling Joel Schumacher that I felt a little out of my league. And Joel said, ‘So do we all. This is the biggest thing any of us will ever do, so just enjoy it.’”178
Clooney was already looking forward to the next Batman film. “Playing Batman is a high point in my career, so I’m very happy to do it because the older you get, the more you realize that it all comes down to just enjoying what you do. On this movie, I got to spend six months out of my life truly enjoying my life.”179
While the crew turned to filming insert shots, Schumacher joked to Starlog’s Shapiro, “I think my influence on this film comes from my drug days. It’s all those hallucinogens I took that have damaged my brain.”180
The film had been budgeted for a 98-day shoot, but it wrapped principal photography more than a week ahead of schedule, on day 88, “which is why you don’t see any studio executives down here wringing their hands,” said Macgregor-Scott. “I’m sort of amazed by it myself,” said Schumacher. “But we were very well prepared and had a lot of the same team, and I think once you’ve climbed Mt. Everest, when you go back again, you know what equipment to take and who to tie to the rope.”181
Warner Bros. co-chairman Robert A. Daly was effusive in his praise of Schumacher. Speaking to Daily Variety’s Daniel Moore about the director’s work on Batman & Robin, Daly said, “It’s not easy to do it on schedule, with no craziness going on. You go to the set...it’s ahead of schedule, everybody’s happy. All the costumes are contemporary and hip; he makes you feel like it’s happening today. Joel stays on a movie from beginning to end. He’s a member of our family. We hope he’s with us forever.”182
When post-production got underway, supervising sound editor John Leveque had to find some unusual sounds to help “sell” the movie’s myriad effects. For the sound of Mr. Freeze icing an entire city with his freeze gun, Leveque tried recording the sound of flash-freezing objects in liquid nitrogen, but the sound was too small. He finally took it upon himself to go seventy miles east of Los Angeles to Big Bear. Finding a deserted lake with the help of a park ranger, Leveque camped out and waited for morning. At the crack of dawn, before the rising sun could melt the layer of virgin ice that had formed on the lake overnight, he stepped out onto the ice sheet and recorded the sound of the ice slowly cracking beneath him as he fell through, sinking to his waist each time. After repeating the process several times, Leveque was satisfied. “The squeegee sound ice makes as it’s giving way is fantastic,” said Leveque. The sound editor reversed the sound and fed it through a digital processor. After building up about one hundred layers of the sound, he had something that he felt approximated the sound of an entire city freezing.183
To get a big, exciting sound for the Batmobile, Leveque and Bruce Stambler visited the Rocket Dyne Space Shuttle facility in Canoga Park, California to record the intense blast of an Atlas rocket engine. “The core of the Batmobile sound is an 800-horsepower, street-legal 1987 Buick Grand National with a wonderful turbocharger whine,” said Stambler. “All in all, we used 60 different, individual sounds to build the sound of the Batmobile.”184
The sound of Batman’s cape posed another challenge. “We needed a large swooshing sound for Batman’s cape,” said
Stambler. “We had already secured a number of recordings of bat wings that were very good, but we lacked a big sound that would really give the feeling of Batman rising into the air and moving off at high speed.” Stambler thought of the Warner Bros. Studios water tower, which had been covered by a massive tarpaulin. “During a windy rainstorm,” said Stambler, “the tarp came loose and ended up streaming off into the air held only by a single tether. We snuck under the tower with our microphone and a portable DAT recorder. What you hear in the movie includes the sound of this enormous tarp flapping, whipping and snapping around in the gale-force wind. It had exactly the right power, ‘crack’ and ‘whoosh’ that we needed.”185
Batman & Robin had 450 visual effects shots, over 150 more than Batman Forever.186 As he had on the previous film, John Dykstra again supervised the shots, many of them accomplished with a combination of CGI, live action and miniatures.187 Several effects houses contributed to the film: Warner Digital for the Gotham City computer-generated extensions, characters frozen by Mr. Freeze and the rays emanating from the Freeze Gun; France’s BUF Compagnie for Poison Ivy’s love dust and magically growing plants, as well as the giant telescope Freeze Ray; and Pacific Data Images for computer-generated characters.188
One of the final elements was the score, again composed by Elliot Goldenthal. “I’ve been seeing which themes from Batman Forever can carry over, because it’s always nice to have a continuum if you can,” said the composer. “It’s obvious that Robin is a more major figure in this film, so I have to come up with a bigger and more heroic Robin theme. There also have to be new themes for Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy.”189
THE MOST FUN JOB IN THE WORLD
Just two weeks after wrapping Batman & Robin, Joel Schumacher announced to Daily Variety’s Michael Fleming that he was preparing the next entry in the Batman saga.190 Schumacher felt a sense of allegiance to his stars, George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell. “This is the most fun job in the world,” said Schumacher. “You just have no idea how much fun it is doing a Batman movie. There’s no reality police, you’re just making up this comic book with villains who make it fun. But also, I asked these actors to be in these movies, and I wouldn’t just say thanks a lot, I’m moving on. That would be unethical and not attractive.”191
Mark Protosevich, who had just turned in his script for I Am Legend, hired on to write the script for the franchise’s fifth installment, after Akiva Goldsman made the leap from writer to producer with Lost in Space.192 Goldsman was philosophical about not being involved in Batman 5. “I have had the greatest time of my life doing Batman,” said Goldsman. “My dream Batman experiences would be the ones I’ve already had. There’s nothing unfulfilled in my life about Batman. There are other Batman movies I would like to see but, at this point, there are no other Batmans I would like to write.”193
“A few months ago,” said Schumacher, “there were 12 movies being shot on the Warner Bros. lot, and Bob Daly and Terry Semel asked to see a sample reel of each film. Each director put together dailies from the film. After Bob and Terry saw ours, they ordered another script for Batman.”194 Warner Bros. sought to get an early start on the next entry, which they hoped to have in theaters in the summer of 1999, when it would face competition from Terminator 3 and the first of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels.195 “There’s a double purpose, to get ahead of the game, but also to budget it early on” said Schumacher. “We had a lot of luck this time because we started so early. We started a week before I shot A Time to Kill, and we had a lot of preparation time, which is the key to these movies.”196
It was rumored that Schumacher might pull down a $10 million salary for the next Batfilm, but the director was cagey, saying he hadn’t formalized his deal but wouldn’t say, anyway. “I’m over-paid, over-stimulated, over-hyped and over-age,” said Schumacher, “but I have the distinction of being the only person in our business who’ll admit it.”197
Schumacher wouldn’t divulge who the villain of the next film would be, though it was thought that the main contenders were Egghead, the Mad Hatter, King Tut and the Scarecrow.198 Internet bloggers latched onto the news that the Scarecrow could be the next Batman villain, and rumors swirled that radio shock jock Howard Stern, who had just made his first foray into movies with the film adaptation of his autobiography, Private Parts, would play the baddie. Warner Bros. called such rumors “100% false,”199 and director Joel Schumacher also denied it, saying, “All of us in the Batman family wish those in the Howard Stern family great success with their film careers, but we do not plan to collaborate at this point.”200
In mid-March 1997, Variety’s Michael Fleming reported that the villains for Batman 5 had been set: Scarecrow, who could make people hallucinate their worst fears, and Harley Quinn, who was seeking revenge on the Caped Crusader for the Joker’s death. “There’s no word on casting yet, but it’ll be an A-talent search as usual,” wrote Fleming.201
That same month, Warner Bros. hosted a Batman & Robin luncheon at the annual ShoWest Convention, with the film’s stars, Joel Schumacher and Peter Macgregor-Scott in attendance. During the festivities, Arnold Schwarzenegger, always an eager self-promoter, referred to the new film as “Batman and Arnold.”202
In April of 1997, Schwarzenegger had heart surgery to replace a congenitally defective aortic valve. “I did not have a health problem when I was shooting the movie,” he said. “I have always had a heart murmur, and it’s one of those things that gets worse through time. But I had all the energy in the world to do the movie. I was never out of breath. I was skiing at 8,000 to 9,000 (foot) altitude.” Schwarzenegger didn’t tell Warner Bros.. about his condition before shooting because he feared it might have made it impossible for the studio to insure him for Batman & Robin.203
George Clooney’s confidence in Batman & Robin began to falter after he attended a press screening of the film on the eve of a publicity tour. Sneaking up into the balcony of Westwood’s Bruin theater, he saw all too clearly that the film wasn’t going over with the audience. “You’re not stupid,” said Clooney. “You can feel the lull. I didn’t get the sense it was terrible, just that it was not everything that I’d hoped. The story got confused along the way. To say the least. But it was a tough call; this is what Batman is. And I walked into it with my eyes open.” Despite his disappointment, Clooney couldn’t deny that playing Batman had made him more famous than ever. “There’s something amazing about getting on a box of cereal,” he said. “It’s an experience everyone should have once.”204
In June, Clooney, O’Donnell and Schwarzenegger appeared together on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where Schwarzenegger talked about his heart surgery and joked that when given a choice between an artificial heart valve and a pig valve, “I’m not going to say which valve I chose, but now every time I see bacon, I start crying.” The film was also the subject of a one-hour special on E!, Batman & Robin Live Premiere, broadcast from Los Angeles as well as being streamed on the entertainment channel’s website. Each of the film’s male stars also appeared on NBC’s Tonight Show With Jay Leno the week prior to the film’s opening, with Clooney on Tuesday, O’Donnell on Wednesday and Schwarzenegger on Thursday.205
Batman & Robin’s Hollywood premiere occurred Thursday, June 12, with the film screening simultaneously at two theaters, Mann’s Village and Mann’s Westwood, as the Batsignal illuminated the clouds overhead. Celebrities attending included the film’s Elle MacPherson and John Glover and producer Peter Macgregor-Scott, as well as Gillian Anderson, Salma Hayek, the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, and Antonio Banderas with Melanie Griffith.206
When the film went into general release on June 20, selected theaters received prints that drew on decades-old technology: Technicolor. Using the same three-strip color process that had been used for Gone With the Wind in 1939, Technicolor created prints to be shown at Mann’s Village theater in Westwood, Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood and the Loew’s Astor Midtown Theater in New York. Technicolor had made a deal with producer Peter
Macgregor-Scott to try the process as an experiment, hoping it would lead film studios to use it for wide release. The three-strip color process was noted for its vibrant hues, deep blacks and bright whites, and the psychedelic panoply of Batman & Robin seemed the perfect test case.207
New Bat-products were manufactured in tandem with the film, including a nearly impossible-to-find Batgirl action figure, complete with “battle blade blaster and strike scythe,” priced at less than $10. Stores that stocked more of the Batman, Robin and Mr. Freeze action figures, which were projected to be big sellers, quickly sold out of the Batgirl figures. There was also a Poison Ivy action figure, also at less than $10, which came with an “evil entrapment” flower weapon. The Bane action figure came with a “double attack axe and colossal crusher gauntlet.” To accompany the Mr. Freeze action figure, one could buy Mr. Freeze’s frozen command center with “ice disk” launcher and missiles for about $15, the same price as his Cryo Freeze Chamber, a laboratory that featured a device called the “capture claw” as well as “power diamonds that change colors when dropped in water.” For $30, collectors could get a “triple action” set that came with a Batwing, Batmobile and Batboat all in one box. A tricked-out $20 Batmobile came with ice-shattering missiles and attack blades to cut through Poison Ivy’s jungle vines.208 The studio expected royalties from sales of 250 licensed Batman & Robin products to equal the $1 billion consumers spent on Batman Forever merchandise.209
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