Billion Dollar Batman

by Bruce Scivally

  Sharon Stone and Lambert Wilson—himself once a candidate for the role of James Bond—signed on to play the villains, while Benjamin Bratt was chosen to play Berry’s love interest. Perhaps hoping to get a director with the same kind of vision as Tim Burton, the studio hired a Frenchman, Pitof, to direct. Pitof had made his reputation as a digital imaging innovator on quirky French films like Delicatessen, and had only recently graduated to the director’s chair with Vidocq. With all the elements in place, Catwoman finally moved from the development-go-round to greenlight. Filming was scheduled to begin in Vancouver, Canada on September 29, 2003.65 In June, well before filming started, Berry went to work getting in shape with trainer Harley Pasternak. Besides gymnastics and stunt and fight training, she learned Capoeira, a Brazilian martial art based on animal movements.66

  Berry also worked with whip master Alex Green, learning the intricacies of a black whip. Green said that after one week of 90-minute sessions, Berry learned how to successfully crack the whip.67 “You can’t just get a whip and say, ‘I’ll just crack it.’ It doesn’t work that way,” Berry told Jet magazine’s Aldore D. Collier. “It’s a piece of equipment where if you don’t know how to work it very well, it can be deadly. And if you don’t know how to do it well, you can injure yourself. It’s something that I worked very hard on. And it’s very sexy! When you get your first crack, you just want to keep on cracking. It’s addictive. I loved it so much that I would have to be told, ‘Halle, put the whip down. The class is over. Go away, you’re done.’ The whole time I shot the movie, on my downtime I was practicing the whip. Getting it to crack loud takes practice. I gave Oprah one on her show, and I think she’s still trying to crack it.”68

  For producer Denise Di Novi, one of the most exciting challenges of the production was the creation of a new Catwoman catsuit. “We all wanted to create something that was a little more urban, a little more contemporary,” said Di Novi. “It had to be tailor-made to reflect Halle’s characterization, so she had a big hand in the design of the suit.” Besides Berry, Pitof and the producers also had input into the suit, which was designed by Academy Award-winning costume designer Angus Strathie. “I’m very proud of the costume design,” said Pitof. “Here again, it has elements of previous cat suits but it is so unique to Halle, to her shape and beauty. It shows a lot of skin but also has a warrior-like quality to it. When she wears it she looks like somebody who’s ready for a fight.” Berry appreciated how “you can see her spine, her ribs and the lean, sinewy musculature of the cat.” For Strathie, one of the biggest design challenges was deciding on what type of material to use. “The costumes for the earlier television and film Catwomen were cutting-edge for their time,” said Strathie. “Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt wore lurex and Michelle Pfeiffer wore latex. Now, Halle is wearing a combination of leather and a brand new silicone fabric we created just for this costume.” The outfit was capped off by claws created with nearly 800 individual crystals used to create the look of pavé diamonds on sterling silver settings.69

  The project continued to churn through writers. Playwright Theresa Rebeck, who scripted Harriet the Spy, took a stab at it, as did John Brancato and Michael Ferris, writers of Terminator 3.70 Others who reportedly toiled on it were Laeta Kalogridis, Kate Kondell, Jon Cowan, John O’Brien, David Reynolds, Harley Peyton, Valerie Breiman, Rita Hsiao and Andrew W. Marlowe.71 When filming was completed, the script went to the Writer’s Guild for arbitration; in all, twenty-eight writers had drafted Catwoman scripts during its decade of development.72 By the time cameras rolled, the character of Selina Kyle/Catwoman from Batman Returns had been completely obliterated. The script now centered on a young, mousy woman named Patience Phillips, who worked for an evil cosmetics conglomerate. When she learns too much, the powers-that-be at the company attempt to kill her, but Patience survives, mysteriously revived by an Egyptian Mau cat. Once resurrected, she finds that she possesses new powers and abilities, which she uses to take down the cosmetics corporation. Although the script borrowed elements from Batman Returns, in the end the writers created a character who was more superhero than villain, and who had no connection whatsoever to Batman or the character of Catwoman as previously established in comic books, TV shows and films.

  Berry told Noe Gold of Daily Variety that the role “wasn’t just about getting the body in shape and putting on the costume. It turned out to be a really good acting job that needed to happen.”73

  “She’s more the anti-hero,” said Berry. “Unlike Superman, Spiderman or Batman, she won’t save the world. She’s kind of a heroic character, but she’s also got kind of a naughty/nice quality to her, too. There’s definitely something naughty about her. She’s not villainous. That’s our new take on her. She has an edge and she represents more of who people really are. She’s a realistic heroine. Nobody’s perfect and we all fall prey to our desires. And sometimes our desires aren’t too admirable.”74

  The character of Patience, said Berry, “had a lot more depth by the time Pitof got involved...Pitof loves women and isn’t afraid of a woman being strong and powerful; Benjamin Bratt is the same way. And with Denise, who is such a girl’s girl and is for women’s empowerment, everybody is all for this woman rising up. By the time we put our heads together, she became a character that was pretty significant and very complicated.”75

  “Catwoman isn’t really an action hero, that’s kind of what’s really great about the movie,” said producer Denise Di Novi. “Even in the comic she’s not a superhero, she’s an antihero. The part really is complex. Halle is playing three characters with three distinct looks, three sets of wigs and wardrobe. There is a lot going on about female identity and empowerment, wondering if someone will love you if they know you have a dark side.”76

  Berry, who separated from her husband, actor Eric Benét, shortly after filming began, said that for her, “it was a perfect time to play a character that was in search of and in need of feeling and finding her own sense of power and self and realizing that she really is OK in the world just the way she is.”77

  When filming got underway, much of it took place at Vancouver’s Center for Performing Arts, formerly the Ford Theater, which was once part of the Livent chain before that company went bankrupt. Warner Bros. rented the theater for 27 days of filming.78 The shoot was not without mishaps; at the end of January 2004, Halle Berry sustained minor injuries when she collided with a boom pole while filming a running scene.79

  The climactic fight scene between Berry and Sharon Stone took nine days to film. Doubling for Berry in the action scenes was Nito Larioza, a 29-year-old male Hawaiian actor and martial artist.80 For the final day of filming on February 20, 2004, many of the crew showed up in their pajamas. The official Warner Bros. presskit said, “The reason was two-fold: firstly, to prepare for a well-deserved and perhaps lengthy catnap; and secondly, to celebrate what was for them, the cast and the filmmakers, a truly extraordinary experience.”81

  To handle the visual effects, Warner Bros. chose San Francisco-based ESC Entertainment, a company founded by the studio and the Wachowski brothers in 2001 to create computer-generated effects for the sequels to The Matrix.82 Over 600 visual effects shots were created, including fully digital shots of Halle Berry and Midnight the cat. “To create the digital replications of Halle, high resolution digital scans, photo references and plaster life-casts were taken,” said visual effects designer/supervisor Ed Jones. “Additionally, we scanned her entire wardrobe to capture all the textural qualities so that we could replicate every detail. We filmed Halle doing a range of emotional facial performances that were then mapped on to her digital double to give us a synthetic character with real facial performances. The goal was to blend the digital characters with the real performers to create seamless, realistic and believable action. Several of the sequences also involved the same digital tools to create the environments virtually. Consequently, there are shots in the movie that are 100% digital.”83

  Before the film was released, it was being
castigated by comic book fans on the internet, who claimed to have seen the script, the trailer and even rushes.84 They were particularly strong in their dislike of Berry’s Catwoman garb, after the first publicity shots of her in the outfit were released. Warner Bros. worried about all the negative buzz the internet chatter was generating, but there was little they could do to combat it. For her part, Berry shrugged it off, saying, “Well, I love the look...I think it’s modern and edgy, but then again you can’t please everybody!”85

  As shooting wound down, the publicity machine began ramping up. In March, just a couple of months after filmed ended, Berry was honored as the Female Star of the Year at the 2004 ShoWest Convention in Las Vegas.86 The theater owners who had gathered for the event were optimistic about the upcoming film. And while Warner Bros. didn’t have nearly the same amount of merchandising partners on Catwoman as on their Batman features, there were still a couple of tie-ins. The upscale Manhattan department store Henri Bendel unveiled a line of Catwoman apparel in black leather.87 And Mattel released a Barbie doll in a Catwoman outfit. Actually, they released two; the first, in 2003, had Barbie dressed more like the Catwoman of the comic books. The second, released in conjunction with the film, had Barbie in a replica of Halle Berry’s Catwoman clothes.

  When filming was completed, Berry adopted Playdough, an orange and white kitty that was one of the 43 cats specially trained for the film.88 Having made the film during a difficult time in her personal life, Berry felt good about what she had accomplished. “I felt empowered and strong and sexy—connected with myself as a woman,” Berry commented about the role. However, she added, “This is a popcorn-eatin’, ass-whoopin’ summer action adventure.”89

  Warner Bros. hoped they had an ass-kicking popcorn movie on their hands, but in preview screenings, it was Catwoman that took the ass-whoopin’, testing poorly. The studio ordered reshoots just a month before its release date.90

  The film premiered at the ArcLight Cinema in Hollywood on July 15, 2004. The after- party was held on the roof of the theater’s garage, which had been converted into an all-black lounge setting with thousands of candles. Halle Berry and Sharon Stone were on hand, along with Warner Bros. executives Alan Horn, Barry Meyer and Jeff Robinov and Village Roadshow’s Bruce Berman. Former Catwoman Lee Meriwether also mixed with a crowd that included the film’s executive producer, Michael Uslan, producer, Ed McDonnell, and director, Pitof.91

  Among the crowd that night was Richard Schenkman, a producer for MTV, who recalled, “When a buddy informed me that he’d scored tickets for the premiere, I was thrilled. It was to be a big, splashy Hollywood event, with the screening at the ArcLight Cinema, and the party on a rooftop nearby. And I wanted to like the movie, I really did, but it was clearly dead on arrival. Berry was fine as Patience Phillips and Catwoman, and certainly looked more than fine in the suit, but the movie itself...”

  Halle Berry slinks into action as Catwoman (Photofest/Warner Bros. Photo: Doane Gregory. © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.).

  “Still, when the opportunity came to meet Berry at the party, I jumped at the chance. She was holed up in a corner of a sectional couch, not moving from the spot except to rise and greet people and then sit down again. She seemed a nervous wreck, as though she was carrying the weight of a stillborn franchise on her delicate shoulders. She seemed pleased to be talking to anybody who came along, even a complete stranger like me. Indeed I was surprised at just how friendly and outgoing she was. It only occurred to me later that perhaps the more important people had been avoiding her all night because of the film’s obvious failings.”

  “Later that evening I also met Michael Uslan, executive producer of the film by virtue of the fact that he had cannily acquired the movie rights to Batman years earlier and had steadfastly held onto them. Interestingly, he seemed to feel the movie was a huge success, and would be a box office smash. He seemed blissfully unaware that the picture was a terrible flop.”92

  Schenkman was not alone in his judgment of the film. Reviewers were not kind, to say the least. In Daily Variety, David Rooney wrote, “After raising the bar for summer blockbusters with its lyrical and imaginative third Harry Potter, Warner Bros. plummets to the dimmest recesses of popcorn inanity with Catwoman, which, even by the standards of comic book adaptations, requires a suspension of disbelief beyond most audiences. Risible yarn about a mousy underachiever rendered superhuman by arcane pussy power plays like a Lifetime movie on estrogen overdose, barely held together by a script that should have been tossed out with the kitty litter.”93

  In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers also savaged the film by using feline metaphors, writing, “Not to be catty about it, but the stench of the litter pan is all over this big-screen $90 million disaster-in-waiting. It’s not hard to see why Halle Berry would want to put on a cat suit and become the first woman of color to play the lead in a blockbuster. After all, Berry is the first African-American woman to win the Best Actress Oscar (for Monster’s Ball). Sadly, Catwoman, allegedly a tale of female empowerment, declaws her ambitions.”94

  The negative internet buzz and scathing reviews put a damper on the film’s box-office prospects. On its opening weekend, it generated a meager $17.2 million in ticket sales at 3,117 theaters.95 The second weekend of its release, its earnings dropped 64%, to $6.1 million.96 Overseas, the numbers were just as bad; the only country in which it performed well was France, Pitof’s homeland. By the time it finished its run, the film had grossed $40,202,379 in the U.S., and $41,900,000 abroad, for a total worldwide box office of $82,102,379. For most films, those would be phenomenal earnings, but Catwoman had cost Warner Bros. and its producing partner Village Roadshow Ltd. $100 million to make.97

  MTV producer Richard Schenkman encountered Pitof some time later at a Director’s Guild of America event, and spoke to the director. “He’d been a highly respected special effects creator, and Catwoman was only his second feature,” said Schenkman. “We chatted for a while until I finally felt comfortable enough to ask him about Catwoman, and what had gone wrong. He had plenty to say on the subject, and laid all the blame at the studio’s feet. He said that the script was never completed, but they’d gone into production anyway. He said that he had not been given the resources he needed to shoot and complete the ending, and when it clearly didn’t work and they demanded a new ending, he was given far too little time and money to do anything effective. In short, he was very disappointed that despite his vision for the movie and his affection for the material, he had simply not been allowed to make a good picture. And... he’s paid the price for its failure, having directed only one feature film since 2004.”98

  Just three years after being honored with an Academy Award for Best Actress, Halle Berry now found herself nominated for a Razzie Award as “Worst Actress of 2004.” No one was surprised when she won it, but they were astonished that she showed up at the 25th Annual Razzie Award ceremony on February 26, 2005 to collect it.99 Said Berry, “I want to thank Warner Bros. for casting me in this piece-of-shit, god-awful movie.”100

  BRUCE WAYNE, DICK GRAYSON & BIRDS OF PREY

  The first weekend of August 1999 saw the release of the animated film The Iron Giant. That same weekend, agents for the screenwriter of The Iron Giant, Tim McCanlies, contacted Tollins/Robbins Productions, producers of the TV series All That, Keenan and Kel and The Amanda Show, and told them that McCanlies had an idea to pitch to them. When McCanlies met with the producers, he spun a tale about a wealthy young man, an American icon in the mold of John F. Kennedy, Jr., who was about to inherit an empire. The young man was given moral direction by a butler who was also a father figure, and by a cop who was one of the only straight cops in a crooked city. As the pitch ended, McCanlies played his trump card, revealing that the young man was Bruce Wayne, and the series would be about his journey to becoming Batman. The producers pounced on the idea.101

  McCanlies was commissioned to write a script for the pilot episode, which has since been synopsized by Craig Byrne of KryptonS
ite.com, a website which has several pages devoted to the proposed Bruce Wayne TV series.

  The pilot begins in London, where Alfred bails Bruce Wayne, an international figure with the media profile of John Kennedy Jr., out of jail. Alfred takes Bruce to a plane, which he boards to return to Gotham City after having been away for 12 years. He’s days away from his 18th birthday, and is anxious to sign the papers to give the Waynecorp trustees the authority to continue running his company. Back in Gotham, Alfred chauffeurs Bruce to Crime Alley, where he’s set upon by some thugs. Bruce overpowers the thugs, and he and Alfred take them to the police station, where Bruce meets a 13-year-old redhead, Barbara, who is there to bring dinner to her father, Det. Jim Gordon. Bruce remembers Gordon from the fateful night in Crime Alley when his parents were murdered before his eyes; Gordon, then a policeman, had comforted young Bruce.

  The next day, Bruce meets with Charles Palantine of Waynecorp. Bruce hesitates about signing the trustee papers, and before he leaves, he sees an old boyhood friend, Lucius Fox. Fox is now an intern at Waynecorp. Alfred now realizes that if Bruce dies or is killed before his 18th birthday, the trustee—Palantine—will fully control Waynecorp. Bruce wants a “trustworthy lawyer” to go over the papers with him, so he turns to another old friend, Harvey Dent. Dent, a laid back young man who likes to party, has just finished his first year of law school. Bruce and Alfred arrive at Harvey’s place to find he’s having a costume party. At the party, Bruce meets two young women: Harvey’s beautiful younger sister, Susan, and Selina Kyle, who is dressed as a tiger, with long claws.