Billion Dollar Batman

by Bruce Scivally

  Warner Bros. didn’t stop there. In August of 2001, the studio hired Andrew Kevin Walker to write an untitled script that would put Batman and Superman together in one film—as enemies. Wolfgang Petersen, director of the acclaimed Das Boot (1982) and Warner Bros.’ 1993 hit In the Line of Fire, not to mention the studio’s top-grossing film of 2000, The Perfect Storm, was immediately attached to direct and to produce the film with Diana Rathbun.43

  The Batman vs. Superman script began with Superman capturing a terrorist who, with his confederates, attempts to destroy the Freedom Monument, a towering glass-domed structure, in Metropolis. When the lead terrorist is captured on a bridge by a group of citizens who are ready to beat him to death, Superman stops them, insisting that justice will be done, but not vigilante justice.

  Back in his guise as Clark Kent, he returns to his apartment, which seems emptier now that Lois Lane has divorced him. When we next see Kent, he’s best man at Bruce Wayne’s wedding. We learn that Wayne has been retired from crime fighting for ten years, since the death of Robin. Wayne marries a woman named Elizabeth and takes her on a tropical honeymoon, where she’s tragically killed by a poison dart, dying in his arms with her lips distorted in a grotesque, wide smile.

  Crushed by his grief, Wayne once again assumes the guise of Batman, but he’s more brutal than ever. Clark Kent, meanwhile, returns to Smallville, where he reconnects with Lana Lang, now a nurse, and has a brief, nostalgic romance with her.

  As the story progresses, we learn that the Joker has returned from the dead, resurrected by Lex Luthor, who is using the clown prince of crime in a scheme to obliterate Superman. He knows that Batman will want to kill the Joker to exact revenge for his wife, and that Superman, ever the good boy scout, will try to stop Batman from doing so. He also knows that Batman is so driven and so resourceful that he won’t let Superman stop him—he’ll kill the Man of Steel, if he has to.

  The film climaxes with two huge set-piece battles. The first is the fight between Superman and Batman, who nearly kills the Man of Steel by wearing a Kryptonite-infused Batsuit and shooting a Kryptonite arrow into Superman’s shoulder. He breaks the arrow off so Superman can’t pull it out.

  As Superman lies apparently dying, Batman ascends Freedom Monument for a battle with the Joker and two of the Joker’s zombie-like goons. When it seems the Joker will get the upper hand, Superman appears, having ascended the building despite his super-strength being nearly depleted. The Joker’s goons take on Superman, who, in his weakened state, is barely able to detain them. Meanwhile, Batman gets the Joker on the deck, about to crush the life out of him by stepping on his windpipe. Superman pleads with him, saying if he’s going to do it, to first remove his mask, so he won’t pretend there’s some other part of him doing it. Batman removes his mask, and it appears he’s going to go through with it, but ultimately he can’t.

  Then Lex Luthor appears, disappointed in Batman for not killing the Joker, and for not completely killing Superman (the kryptonite was not in the point of the arrow, but in the shaft; by breaking it off, Batman had weakened but not killed Superman). Luthor pushes the Joker off the monument, then—wearing a suit designed by the U.S. military that gives him super- speed—begins fighting both Batman and Superman, moving so fast they can’t see him. Batman eventually grabs Luthor and topples over the edge of the monument with him. Superman also goes over the edge, but as he falls down into the rays of the rising sun, enough of his superpowers return to allow him to rescue Batman. Luthor crashes into the concrete below, his super-suit exploding.

  The script ends with Batman and Superman once again friends. Batman suggests they go get a beer. Superman says maybe a soda. Batman says, “Oh god, what is it with you?” and they walk off into the dawn.44

  The tight, fast-paced script moved relentlessly to set up the big fight scenes at the end, but the overall tone was extremely bleak and mostly humorless, and the fights were long, extended, brutal punch-ups. In the end, one could imagine that the resulting film would have been rather like a movie version of a World Wrestling Federation bout, with the main attraction being a fight to the almost-death between two of the world’s finest heroes.

  Nonetheless, Warner executives saw Batman vs. Superman as a way to reinvigorate both the Superman and Batman franchises. Though the film was dark and pitted the heroes against each other in the third act, studio executives figured that after audiences were reintroduced to Batman and Superman through this film, then the studio could make separate films with the characters acting independently.45 Overseeing Batman vs. Superman was di Bonaventura and Warner Bros. senior vice-president Bob Brassel.46 “We are pleased that Wolfgang Petersen is bringing his considerable talents to this newest episode of two of our most import franchises,” di Bonaventura said. “In his hands, Batman vs. Superman will carry forward the Warner Bros. superhero tradition; we look forward to starting this project as soon as possible.”47

  Petersen didn’t yet know who he wanted for the title roles, but he told Variety that he sought actors who not only had good physiques but who also had the acting chops for the complex emotions required by the script. “Everything after September 11 is different,” he said. “You want to change the image of these superheroes.”48

  Petersen hoped to begin filming in early 2003, expecting to shoot for five or six months. However, at the same time as he was developing Batman vs. Superman, he was also developing other projects for the studio, including The Trojan War and a pair of films to be based on novels by Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow. But, he said, “It was just too exciting to me not to do Batman vs. Superman now. It’s good to have a handful of projects cooking in your drawer. Let’s see what happens after this.”49

  On July 9, 2002, Daily Variety reported that Petersen was definitely directing Batman vs. Superman for a 2004 release. “It is a clash of the titans,” said Petersen. “They play off of each other so perfectly. (Superman) is clear, bright, all that is noble and good, and Batman represents the dark, obsessive and vengeful side. They are two sides of the same coin and this is material for great drama.”50

  Already, however, events were transpiring that would set di Bonaventura on a collision course with Warner Bros. president Alan Horn. On July 5, 2002, J.J. Abrams turned in to the studio the first 88 pages of a script for a new Superman movie, but not just any Superman movie—it was part one of a trilogy. After Bob Brassel read it, he immediately called producer Jon Peters and told him he had to read it, saying, “I did, and it was amazing. In a world of chaos, it’s about hope and light.” Lorenzo di Bonaventura also liked the script, feeling that it was more epic and ambitious than earlier Superman screenplays. He called both Alan Horn and Barry M. Meyer, the chief executive of Warner Bros., encouraging them to read it.

  Abrams continued working on his Superman story, turning in the final 50 pages in mid-July, just as Warner Bros. announced plans to move ahead with Batman vs. Superman; the studio said Petersen would begin filming the superhero match-up in February 2003. Meanwhile, producer Jon Peters, writer J.J. Abrams and Brassel met in di Bonaventura’s office to discuss the completed Superman script. Reportedly, di Bonaventura indicated that he liked the script and the studio wanted to make it, but they were going to proceed with both that film and Batman vs. Superman. However, they would release the Wolfgang Petersen film first. Abrams balked at that idea, suggesting it would be like making a movie called When Harry Divorced Sallybefore making When Harry Met Sally. Reportedly, di Bonaventura saw it another way. For one thing, McG, the director Warner Bros. still wanted to direct the Superman movie, wasn’t yet available, but he might be if the picture were delayed. Secondly, a movie featuring a clash of Batman and Superman might attract fans of the older movies before the new individual series reinvented the characters.

  As the producer of Superman, Jon Peters had an interest in seeing his film made first, and several executives at Warner Bros. agreed, worried that the darker tone of Batman vs. Superman might turn off audiences and
kill both franchises. Warner Bros. president Alan Horn, who often clashed with di Bonaventura over which films the studio should make, read Abrams’s script in mid-July. He liked it, but instead of championing it outright, he decided to give both scripts to ten Warner Bros. executives, including representatives from international and domestic theatrical marketing, consumer products and home video, to see if they would rally behind him.

  The ten executives met in a second floor conference room on an early morning in August to decide which film to make first. Only two people in the room, production executive Jeff Robinov and senior vice president Bob Brassel, knew which script was favored by Horn and which by di Bonaventura, so as not to bias the proceedings. After the vote was taken, the more upbeat Superman script came out the unanimous winner. But di Bonaventura would not give in easily; he argued that Batman vs. Superman was filled with action, which would make it easier to market. The executives, however, felt that Abrams’s story, as the first of a trilogy, would spin off two other movies, and thus it would potentially bring in three times the amount of money from DVDs and merchandising. And if it bombed, the studio could still go ahead with Batman vs. Superman.

  According to The New York Times, di Bonaventura was so upset by the outcome that he flew to New York to meet with AOL Time-Warner’s chief executive, Richard D. Parsons, and the new chairman of the company’s entertainment and network group, Jeff Bewkes. For di Bonaventura, this was the last straw. He laid out his issues with Horn and argued for his removal, but Parsons and Bewkes were not about to knock the president of Warner Bros. out of his job.

  At the end of August, after asking Batman & Robin screenwriter Akiva Goldsman to do a rewrite of Batman vs. Superman, Warner Bros. pulled the plug on the project. It was the end of the road for di Bonaventura. After twelve years at Warner Bros., he packed up his office and left the studio. Publicly, both he and the studio denied that he was leaving over the battle about which superhero film would be made first. Horn told The New York Times that while he respected creative differences, “I said I wanted to do Superman. At the end of the day it’s my job to decide what movies we make.”51 Ultimately, neither of the films would ever make it into production.

  Wolfgang Petersen moved on to another project he’d been developing, Troy. He had wanted to make that film first anyway, but had been coerced by Warner Bros. to set it aside in favor of Batman vs. Superman. Even though the superhero film had been cancelled, Petersen told Dana Harris of Daily Variety, “I’m looking forward to directing Batman vs. Superman in the future.”52 As late as 2004, while Petersen was preparing to film Troy and Christopher Nolan was deep into pre-production of a new Batman feature, Petersen told Daily Variety’s Michael Fleming that he was still interested in doing Batman vs. Superman.53

  After going through more rewrites, more directors, and millions of dollars, the Superman trilogy also was eventually scuttled. It took director Bryan Singer to bring the Man of Steel back to movie screens, in 2006’s Superman Returns, a film that looked backward to the Superman films of the 1980s instead of to the future.

  In July 2002, while Warner Bros. juggled opposing Batman and Superman film projects, Mattel scored a coup by winning a five-year contract to produce toys and games based on Batman, Superman and Looney Tunes characters from Warner Bros. The toy company won the rights, projected to be worth between $200 million and $500 million, after impressing Warners with their toys for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. They wouldn’t get the Batman rights, however, until Warners’ contract with Hasbro, Inc. ran out at the end of the year.54

  The deal between Warners and Mattel came together almost by accident. Warners thought they could get a better deal for the licenses by packaging five properties together— Batman, Superman, Looney Tunes, Baby Looney Tunes and Justice League—than by selling them individually. Hasbro put in a bid on the package, but Mattel’s offer was larger. Now that the deal was sealed, the toymaker was keen for Warner Bros. to get superhero films into production to help drive toy sales.55

  As evidence of how much a hit superhero film could promote sales, one only had to look at Marvel Enterprises. In 2004, during a time when much of the toy industry saw flat sales, Marvel reported $4 billion in worldwide licensed retail sales, enough to give them a ranking in fourth place on License! magazine’s list of top licensors. The previous year, the company had been ranked at number 69, with sales of $189 million. The reason for the huge increase in sales was the fact that films had been released featuring Marvel characters Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four and X-Men. Warner Bros. Consumer Products, meanwhile, even without any superhero films in theaters, took second place (behind Disney) with sales of $6 billion, mostly due to Batman and Superman licensed products.56 This was despite the fact that in the summer of 2003, DC Comics, with a 26% share of the comic book market, was in second place to Marvel, which had 32%.57

  Just two months after the Mattel deal was signed, a real-life detective case involving Batman was solved. In March of 1996, a Batman uniform and mannequin valued at $150,000 went missing from Warner Bros. In April 2001, four Spider-Man suits valued at $50,000 each were pilfered from the set of Spider-Man at Sony Pictures Entertainment. Police from Culver City, California investigated for 18 months before serving search warrants in Los Angeles and New York, where three of the Spider-Man suits were found. The remaining Spider-Man suit was located in Japan, while the Batman outfit and a mannequin were traced to a collector in New York. The suits were stolen by a security guard who worked first at Warner Bros. and then at Sony Pictures Entertainment. He was charged with two counts of receiving stolen property, while his confederate was charged with one count of receiving stolen property.58

  By the time development of Batman vs. Superman was postponed, Batman: Year One was also running out of steam. Director Darren Aronofsky told Stuart Wood of CinemaBlend.com, “I never really wanted to make a Batman film, it was a kind of bait and switch strategy. I was working on Requiem for a Dream and I got a phone call that Warner Bros wanted to talk about Batman. At the time I had this idea for a film called The Fountain which I knew was gonna be this big movie and I was thinking, ‘Is Warners really gonna give me $80 million to make a film about love and death after I come off a heroin movie?’ So my theory was if I can write this Batman film and they could perceive me as a writer for it, then maybe they’d let me go ahead, which worked out great until Brad Pitt quit.”59 Besides Pitt’s departure, Warner Bros. had balked at the $70 million dollar budget for The Fountain; Aronofsky eventually made it in 2006, with Hugh Jackman starring.60

  Development of the live-action Batman Beyond also fizzled eventually. But one Batman-related project that had been bouncing around the studio since the release of Batman Returns in 1992 did make it to the screen...

  CATWOMAN

  From the moment Batman Returns opened in 1992, and the public responded so enthusiastically to Michelle Pfeiffer’s take on Catwoman, Warner Bros. began thinking “new franchise.” The studio immediately set about developing a Catwoman film for Pfeiffer.61 A year later, Michael Fleming of Daily Variety reported that although no deals had been signed, some of the creative minds behind Batman Returns were hard at work on the Catwoman movie. Denise Di Novi had signed on as producer, Tim Burton was expected to direct it, and screenwriter Daniel Waters was banging out a storyline.62

  A couple of years passed, and the project lost momentum. It ended up in development hell, with numerous writers taking a crack at the script, including Cosby show writer John Rogers. But then, in 2001, it began to take on a new life. By that time, both Tim Burton and Michelle Pfeiffer had moved on, but producer Denise Di Novi was still trying to make it happen. At the end of March 2001, Di Novi, Warner Bros. executive vice-president Kevin McCormick, and worldwide production president Lorenzo di Bonaventura met with an actress whose career was heating up, and whom they thought had the right grit and intensity to carry the lead in an action film—Ashley Judd.63 Judd agreed to play Catwoman, but Warner Bros. president Alan Horn w
anted to wait until the studio had the latest draft of Rogers’s script before making the actress an offer.64 Despite the studio’s enthusiasm, the project again languished.

  In the summer of 2003, the film finally began to come together. Ashley Judd was out, replaced by Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry. Berry seemed an ideal choice. She had almost stolen the show from Pierce Brosnan in the 2002 James Bond adventure Die Another Day as a secret agent named Jinx, a character the 007 producers pondered spinning off into her own series. Plus, Berry had comic book credentials after playing Storm in two X-Men movies for director Bryan Singer. With Catwoman, she would finally be given the chance to move out of the ensemble and into the limelight, carrying an action/adventure film on her own slender shoulders.