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I was thinking how today's superhero movies are designed with sequels and setting up cinematic universes in mind.
A movie like Batman Returns where the director had almost complete reign over everything would never happen nowadays.
So when you stop and think about it Batman Returns is really a one of a kind movie.

I've wondered about that, actually. Do movie studios demand trilogies? Or is a trilogy merely the most tempting direction for directors to take?

Considering how much money is spent on these movies nowadays, a movie probably has to hit $1 billion before a movie studio will allow a director total creative freedom... although even then, studios have a different definition of "total" than we probably do.

Burton probably had as much freedom as any comic book movie director ever did though. And I can't picture a director being allowed that much latitude ever again.

Quote from: Vampfox on Tue,  1 Aug  2017, 04:17
I was thinking how today's superhero movies are designed with sequels and setting up cinematic universes in mind.
A movie like Batman Returns where the director had almost complete reign over everything would never happen nowadays.
So when you stop and think about it Batman Returns is really a one of a kind movie.

B89 is structured like a standalone and it was basically meant to be a standalone. I think that's why fans responded to it so much. It covered a lot of territory in two hours and had a clear ending. Sure, the war goes on, but the lasting memory is that the Joker died, his gang was locked up and Batman won.

B89 doesn't need Batman Returns, and Batman Returns doesn't really need B89 to exist either. Yes, I'm aware of the connective tissue, but let's face it, they're both standalones with the same cast members. Burton used the second film to explore a side he didn't get to in the first. That's why I'm sure he came back in the first place. It's was kind of like a free hit in that sense.

With all that said, I still feel a sense of unfinished business with the Burtonverse even though I accept Michael and Michelle are probably never going to reprise these roles again in any medium. But geez, give me a comic series like B66.

Burton pushed for Keaton against heavy resistance and look how right he was. I'm sure that's a card Burton got to play to get him the freedom he got with Returns.

We're never going to get another comic book movie intended as a solo adventure anymore the way the Burton films were. They will always be intended to set up sequels.

Quote from: riddler on Wed,  2 Aug  2017, 04:05
We're never going to get another comic book movie intended as a solo adventure anymore the way the Burton films were. They will always be intended to set up sequels.

You're right.

I'm in two minds about this.

Do I want to see more films about these characters? Yes. But are they special events anymore? No.

Sure, it was a different time, but the likes of B89 were big events. It was special and had a level of anticipation that only pure hunger can generate. The Dark Knight is a modern example of this frenzy, and I guess it came out at a time when the McDonald's CBM factory was just starting to really heat up. It was a perfect storm.

So in summary, I think the DCEU is striking a good balance. About two films a year keeps us satisfied but still hungry.

Quote from: The Dark Knight on Wed,  2 Aug  2017, 01:44
But geez, give me a comic series like B66.

I'd love a comic continuation of the Burton movies. But sadly that will never happen since Warner Bros/DC seem to treat the Schumacher Batman movies as being part of the same universe.

Quote from: Vampfox on Wed,  2 Aug  2017, 15:41Warner Bros/DC seem to treat the Schumacher Batman movies as being part of the same universe.

That's my view as well.

Quote from: Vampfox on Wed,  2 Aug  2017, 15:41

Quote from: The Dark Knight on Wed,  2 Aug  2017, 01:44
But geez, give me a comic series like B66.

I'd love a comic continuation of the Burton movies. But sadly that will never happen since Warner Bros/DC seem to treat the Schumacher Batman movies as being part of the same universe.

You're right, of course. Technically we already have the Burtonverse continuation with Schumacher's two films. I acknowledge that's the official canon, but we all know things would've been different with Burton at the helm. Therefore a Burtonverse comic continuation would come under the Elseworlds banner. Or, they could simply fit in a couple of adventures that take place before Batman Forever. You're really limiting storytelling potential this way, but it'd be better than nothing I guess.

Since Burton doesn't overly care for comic books, I would be surprised if he had any involvement in overseeing one.

At the end of the day we need to just accept that the Schumacher films are sequels to the Burton films and we will never know what would have been.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Wed,  2 Aug  2017, 23:17

Quote from: Vampfox on Wed,  2 Aug  2017, 15:41Warner Bros/DC seem to treat the Schumacher Batman movies as being part of the same universe.

That's my view as well.

True they're meant to be part of the same universe as the Tim Burton films, but it makes me sad to think of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin as squeals to Batman and Batman Returns. 
Nowadays the Schumacher Batman films would be seen as a soft reboot.

My three main ideas for Burton's Batman III:

Provide a brand new aesthetic for Gotham, Wayne Manor and the batcave.
Transition Harvey into Two-Face.
Bring in the Burtonverse Robin.

The rest of the story would be up to the writers.

Alluding to Selina would be optional. Commenting on Batman's status with the police force after BR would also be optional. The Burtonverse never really was big on continuity like that, even though it would be an interesting plot point. Maybe just a subtle reference.

I reiterate, a comic series would be great. But I wouldn't hold my breath. This is what message boards are for.

Quote from: The Dark Knight on Thu,  3 Aug  2017, 07:23My three main ideas for Burton's Batman III:

Provide a brand new aesthetic for Gotham, Wayne Manor and the batcave.
Transition Harvey into Two-Face.
Bring in the Burtonverse Robin.

The rest of the story would be up to the writers.

Alluding to Selina would be optional. Commenting on Batman's status with the police force after BR would also be optional. The Burtonverse never really was big on continuity like that, even though it would be an interesting plot point. Maybe just a subtle reference.

I reiterate, a comic series would be great. But I wouldn't hold my breath. This is what message boards are for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6F6u5TIUbI

Batman Returns is definitely one of a kind. In more ways than one.

Quote from: JokerMeThis on Mon, 14 Aug  2017, 00:52
Batman Returns is definitely one of a kind. In more ways than one.

It is indeed!

By the way, it's Cristi's (the Ice Princess) birthday today!  August 14.  Yesterday was also Debi Mazar's (Spice from Batman Forever) birthday.  Both Debi and Cristi are 53 today.

And since Catwoman the 2004 movie is supposedly part of the same universe as the Burton/Schumacher films, it's also worth mentioning that August 14 is also Halle Berry's birthday.  She's 51.

PS: I let a message for you on the 'site changes' thread.  I hope you saw it. :)

Quote from: johnnygobbs on Mon, 14 Aug  2017, 13:16
And since Catwoman the 2004 movie is supposedly part of the same universe as the Burton/Schumacher films,

There is a picture of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman during one scene in which Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) visits Ophelia Powers' (Frances Conroy) expert on supernatural felines.

The Anton Furst Batmobile appears in the third season of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. It also appears in the Batman OnStar commercials, along with Michael Gough as Alfred, Clooney's batsuit, the Danny Elfman score and special effects footage of Gotham taken from the Burton/Schumacher movies. The Birds of Prey TV series includes a modified version of Clooney's Batsuit and Pfeiffer's Catwoman costume. However none of those things are considered part of the Burtonverse.

If there's evidence to the contrary, I'll happily concede I'm wrong on this point. But I haven't seen a single DC or Batman wiki that lists the 2004 Catwoman film as part of the Burtonverse either. Nor have I seen quotes from anyone involved with those films to suggest it is. Tim Burton and Daniel Waters never intended Catwoman to be supernatural in Batman Returns. The whole cat-mythology thing was merely an inference made by the creators of the 2004 film.

From Burton's DVD commentary:

Quote"...you see the creation with the cats coming around her. It's not supernatural. But we feed into the sort of mythology a little bit; of cats and nine lives and all that sort of thing [...] It's not supernatural, but you don't really know."

Daniel Waters:

Quote"To me, the whole nine lives thing was just a piece of dialogue and vague artistic license. It was never something I considered literally. In my script, and even in the movie, Selina Kyle dies at the end."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/batman-returns-at-25-stars-reveal-script-cuts-freezing-sets-aggressive-penguins-1013942

In the 2004 movie the supernatural aspect is explicit. It's a totally different mythology. And besides the blink-and-you'll-miss-it Easter egg photo of Pfeiffer, the film references no characters or events from the Burton/Schumacher movies. Had they gone with Waters' original screenplay, which followed Selina's adventures after the events of Batman Returns, then it would have been part of the Burtonverse. But as it stands, the 2004 Catwoman exists in its own self-contained universe.

Fair enough.  I don't feel strongly about this.  I just recall Catwoman being initially devised as a spin-off from the Burton/Schumacher films, and I just felt that since it references Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman, albeit in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, it had more right to be considered part of the franchise than a commercial or a TV show that only featured props/costumes from the earlier films.

The problem I have with the Pfeiffer photo is that it's clearly a professionally staged publicity shot.


When, during the events of Batman Returns, did Selina pose for such a picture? And how did it end up in the hands of the characters in Catwoman 2004? It's not so much a picture of Pfeiffer's Catwoman as it is a picture of Michelle Pfeiffer portraying Catwoman, if you follow my meaning.

I'd argue Lois & Clark, the OnStar Batman and Birds of Prey are all worthier of being connected to the Burtonverse, simply because unlike Catwoman 2004 they do at least acknowledge the existence of Batman and Gotham City. By contrast, Catwoman 2004 has absolutely nothing to do with Batman. It's completely divorced from the mythos.

I've never seen Halle Berry's Catwoman, so I don't know if it's deserving of all the hate it gets. But I will say it was a wasted opportunity in terms of her costume. I was a big Berry fan as a young guy, especially given her role in Die Another Day and X-Men. They had a stunning woman and in my opinion, they somehow made her look unappealing, which is an incredible feat. I like that they showed skin, but on the whole, I think that suit was average. As a red-blooded male I always felt they could've done so much more.

I don't see how the very small shot of Pfeiffer makes the 2004 film part of the Burton universe any more than the quip about exploding penguins makes the Judtice league part of it. Berry's character is named Patience Phillips and has no connection to the Burtonverse.

It seems obvious that the 2004 film was intended to be sleek and sexy instead of actually good. Halle Berry still makes movies but there's no doubt that her career took a dive after this film. I haven't seen the film in it's entirety but I've seen parts of it on TV over the years and there really was nothing compelling about it. Sharon Stone is pretty good as a villain, that's about the only good thing I can say about it. 

Quote from: riddler on Tue, 15 Aug  2017, 16:52
Halle Berry still makes movies but there's no doubt that her career took a dive after this film.

It really did, which I think is a shame. Her life seems to have been full of drama, but I mean....what happened?

I put stuff like that down to poor management. In fairness, probably nobody assumed the movie would become what it became.

But still, when you've won Oscars and your manager comes to you saying "You should do this movie, it's a lot of money and it's good exposure", you should be wary.

Still, fair play to Berry, who personally showed up to collect her Razzie like a good sport. If the movers and shakers behind B&R had been a bit more self-deprecating, I honestly believe Internet hostilities wouldn't have become as psychotic as they did.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Wed, 16 Aug  2017, 22:58
I put stuff like that down to poor management. In fairness, probably nobody assumed the movie would become what it became.

But still, when you've won Oscars and your manager comes to you saying "You should do this movie, it's a lot of money and it's good exposure", you should be wary.

Still, fair play to Berry, who personally showed up to collect her Razzie like a good sport. If the movers and shakers behind B&R had been a bit more self-deprecating, I honestly believe Internet hostilities wouldn't have become as psychotic as they did.

I may be wrong but I believe at the time she was the only person to ever bring their own oscar to the razzie awards.

I think it's a different scenario from Batman and Robin. Catwoman may have been a bad movie but its expectations weren't as high as Batman and Robins. The expectations were never that huge considering that there hadn't yet been a successful super heroine film (you could argue that didn't come until this year's Wonder Woman) and I think anyone who saw the film realizes that no leading actress could have saved the film.
There is no excuse for a Batman film to fail. He is the most popular super hero and that series already had three huge box office successes. True Batman and Robin was not a box office bomb but critically speaking it was a failure and you can't just blame internet trolls for that. It seemed to be a popular theme among 90's sequels to lampoon their earlier films and this sort of thing risks annoying fans of the material. George Clooney did basically denounce the film after it's theatrical run and that didn't help the films rep.

Take the 80's film Leonard part six as an example. Bill Cosby came out and denounced the film right off the bat but that didn't get him off the hook considering he wrote, produced, and starred in it. This isn't to say that film makers owe fans anything, they make the films, nobody is forced to watch them but I really don't think there was anything Schumacher could have done to save face at that point. He knew he was taking on an immensely popular character and was subjecting himself to a backlash if the fans didn't like what he was giving them. Note that when he did Phantom of the Opera 7 years later, his back was arched up higher when his creative choices were questioned basically saying "If you don't like what we're doing here, stay home".

Quote from: riddler on Sat, 19 Aug  2017, 15:43There is no excuse for a Batman film to fail.

At that time, there absolutely was. There was arguable precedent for it, even. After B89, Batman Returns was perceived as being less successful (which was objectively true) and less popular (which was subjective) than its predecessor.

But even after BF, Batman wasn't regarded by really anybody as box office gold.

Quote from: riddler on Sat, 19 Aug  2017, 15:43He is the most popular super hero

He is now. He wasn't back then.

Quote from: Vampfox on Tue,  1 Aug  2017, 04:17
I was thinking how today's superhero movies are designed with sequels and setting up cinematic universes in mind.
A movie like Batman Returns where the director had almost complete reign over everything would never happen nowadays.
So when you stop and think about it Batman Returns is really a one of a kind movie.

Let alone where a director has that kind of freedom and yet isn't reverent to his first movie, instead consciously makes the second film pretty independent to it.


It's pretty weird that Catwoman is very vague about whether there have or haven't been other superheroes or supervillains around, or where it's even set (not Gotham but not a sense of any specific place). Although if it is in the same continuity of BR I wonder if it maybe implies that Pfeiffer Catwoman died if there can only be one Catwoman at a time.

Quote from: Vampfox on Tue,  1 Aug  2017, 04:17
I was thinking how today's superhero movies are designed with sequels and setting up cinematic universes in mind.
A movie like Batman Returns where the director had almost complete reign over everything would never happen nowadays.
So when you stop and think about it Batman Returns is really a one of a kind movie.

Another thing that makes BR unique is Burton was able to create his own movie without taking any plot ideas from graphic novels, unlike today's movies.
For example, a lot of these DC movies in the last thirteen years owe a lot to artists like Frank Miller and Alan Moore when it comes to inspiration or idea. But with BR, Burton used his own imagination to reinvent characters and create the story quite differently. Whereas B89 was a surreal world that mixes some gangster film elements together with noir, BR was a film that you can tell was typically Burton: Gothic, tragic, quirky and larger than life.

Agreed.

I think it comes down to how visually unique it is - you see a random still from the film, without any of the main characters in the frame, you immediately know it's Batman Returns.

Not so much with most of Marvel's movies. After a while they feel a bit like episodes of a cinema-budgeted TV series.

Quote from: Azrael on Sun, 28 Jan  2018, 17:14
Agreed.

I think it comes down to how visually unique it is - you see a random still from the film, without any of the main characters in the frame, you immediately know it's Batman Returns.

Not so much with most of Marvel's movies. After a while they feel a bit like episodes of a cinema-budgeted TV series.

As the years pass and new movies are made, we always return to our old friends. B89 and BR are old friends. We grew up with them and you never forget your first love. That's why in the eyes of many Batman fans Burton just can't be beaten. I'm much the same. I think Affleck is probably the best overall, but I'm never leaving Keaton's side. He's still the first person I think of when someone says 'Batman'.

Or 'Bruce Wayne'. Even if he wasn't a physical match to the comics Wayne, he had the attitude. It's not just nostalgia, though, there's many other things I loved as a kid at the time I loved the 1989-92 films, things which I consider silly right now. Burton's Batman stayed with me. There are things about them which are timeless.

Agreed about Affleck, he has the potential to be the best Batman in live action. I say 'has the potential' because we got only glimpses of him doing Batman things in an urban Gotham setting. I hope he's still around for the first solo Bat-film. Him and Irons, the best Wayne/Alfred duo ever.