Joel Schumakers "BATMAN TRIUMPHANT" and other close calls

[Matt.S99]

I would have really loved to see Shumachers next 2 batman movies in all honesty.

 

[DACrowe]

The Batman Beyond sounds really interesting. I forgot about that and would still like to see it, much more than Dark Knight Returns turned into a movie actually.

The other three sounded meh to bad. Triumphant is intriguing but given Clooney and Schumaucher's involvement it probably would've sucked. DarKnight was okay but sounded generic. Batman vs. Superman sounds like it completely misses the point of Batman, albeit Superman fanboys would've preferred it's post-crisis approach over SR. And Year One, well they took a perfectly good graphic novel (though I don't think it'd be a great movie) and butchered it. Big Al?

Be happy we got Nolan doing BB and now TDK instead.

 

[justinianus]

Seeing the things in retrospect, a film like Batman Begins is what the franchise really needed to soar. Some of these movies could turn out to be fine, nut still be subpar sequels or spinoffs compared to X-men or Spider-Man. A long hiatus and a reboot is what it was really needed.

 

[obiwan]

actually thank god we got TDK. BB was too boring for my taste.

 

[DaRkVeNgeanCe]

actually thank god we got TDK. BB was too boring for my taste.

Thanks for your input, you must not like any balanced out films then huh?

 

[obiwan]

BB was boring, at least to me. and i know im not alone in thinking that. the only good parts were near the end with the monorail, everything else was just filler. i guess i just dont find biopics/origin stories very entertaining. TDK though was much better improvement over BB, but i still say the burton films were better.

 

[The Englishman]

BB was boring, at least to me. and i know im not alone in thinking that. the only good parts were near the end with the monorail, everything else was just filler. i guess i just dont find biopics/origin stories very entertaining. TDK though was much better improvement over BB, but i still say the burton films were better.

You are a Muppet!!......

 

[MrQuinn]

Aranofsky and Miller directing a Year One film, and then backing out because it's too violent?

Everything about that scenario sounds awesome except the "backing out" part.

 

[Gotham22]

is it just me but TDK is is like Batman89. TDK wasnt as realistic like BB was which I hated Begins being realistic.

 

[The Spider-Bat]

I do think that Batman Begins was the right choice to kick start this series back into actoin, but I would have loved to see the Year One movie brought to life.

 

[DaRkVeNgeanCe]

BB was boring, at least to me. and i know im not alone in thinking that. the only good parts were near the end with the monorail, everything else was just filler. i guess i just dont find biopics/origin stories very entertaining. TDK though was much better improvement over BB, but i still say the burton films were better.

See I like well-made origin films with a good story, character development and so on, thats why I guess I liked BB as much as I did.

 

[Johnny Drama]

Batman begins was awesome. How could you be bored with that?

 

[JP]

I'd kill to see Batman Beyond on film!

 

[Sawyer]

Batman:Triumphant, Batman: DarKnight, and Batman Beyond movies ALMOST happened. Thank god we got Batman Begins.
Let's discuss how the franchise MIGHT have turned out had Chris Nolan not saved Batman from obscurity.


Batman Triumphant from an online source

Warner Bros. hired Mark Protosevich to write a script for the fifth Batman film, titled Batman Triumphant, even before the theatrical release of Batman & Robin. Joel Schumacher, George Clooney, and Chris O’Donnell were still contracted for another film. The Scarecrow was to be the main villain and through the use of his fear gas, Scarecrow would cause Batman to confront his worst fear: the return of The Joker. Harley Quinn was in the script and shown as the daughter of Jack Napier. [8]
As of yet, the script hasn’t been leaked online and it is unknown whether or not Jack Nicholson would reprise his role as the Joker. Due to poor results from Batman & Robin, Triumphant was cancelled and Warner Bros. commissioned more scripts

That probably would have turned out terrible, but I would love to read the script someday. Hopefully they would have told Clooney to take a hike, and cast someone else.

 

[Majik1387]

I'm still intrigued to see how Batman: Triumphant would have worked out. And I know Harley Quinn being the Joker's daughter doesn't sound good, but I'm sure a rewrite would have been an option down the line.

The Man-Bat one sounded interesting too. With Dick being kidnapped and tortured, sorta sounds like what happened to Tim Drake in BB: RotJ.

 

[urrutiap]

years ago during 1989-1990 there were rumors in those old Teen Beat magazines that Batman Returns was supposed to be an all villain team up of Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin and Two Face. Then another rumor was around at the time that Madonna was supposed to be the Joker's wife to get revenge and had the help of Scarecrow which the flashbacks of Jack Nicholson's Joker was to be in Batman Returns or at least Batman 4 if Keaton had stuck around

I wonder what Two Face would have looked like back in 1989-1991. Makeup back then wasnt that great for some movies but it still would have been cool but then having Two Face in Batman 2 would have made the movie darker or whatever

 

[The Shredder]

After walking out of Batman & Robin in the summer of 1997, the idea of walking into another Schumacher helmed Batman flick definately wouldnt be something I would have looked forward to. However, the chance of seeing Jack reprise the role of the Joker, a performance I absolutely fell in love with back in 1989, would have in all likelyhood, lured me back for Batman Triumphant.

 

[deathfromabove]

Catwoman is like if someone pushed their perfectly good car off a cliff. B&R is like someone pushed your car off.

a perfect analogy.

and i have read a few versions of aronofsky and miller's year one script and i would love to see it adapted as an elseworlds book or something. lots of really interesting ideas. a sometimes homeless bruce missing half his teeth and having a bald scarred head from fighting. very tyler durden. the makeshift bat lincoln towncar built by big black al(fred) who ran a chop shop. gordon was a truelly vile human being but still the most honest cop in gotham. as much as would love to see what aronofsky would do with more traditional batman material this script would never had worked on screen as a batman movie. way too bleak and "teh gritty". it seemed to me they took it to the exact opposite extreme of batman and robin. kinda taxi driver meets dirty harry/death wish meets fight club all filtered through the basic idea of a man who loses his parents and vows revenge in the guise of a bat. bruce was clearly a lunatic and nearly everything about the mythos was stripped away or changed to an nearly unrecognizable degree in typical miller fashion. much closer to a seventies revenge/crime story than a batman tale. this would have made TDK look tame and fantastical.

but i have to think that this 180 degree antonym to what the studio had grown (groan) to expect regarding the bat francise must have helped when nolan suggested his much less extreme but still slightly revisionist and much more "teh realistics" take a few years later. meaning if the miller/aronofsky script wasnt so bleak wb might not have been too keen on nolan's sober, yet comparitavely light, take.

in fact i remember reading somewhere that miller never thought the script would get produced. that he was in fact just writing it just to take the francise as far from the direction it was headed as he could. kind of like a counterbalance to erase the studios previous expectations of what a batman film could be.

if that was in fact his intentions, i dare say, it worked.

 

[StylishHokie21]

After walking out of Batman & Robin in the summer of 1997, the idea of walking into another Schumacher helmed Batman flick definately wouldnt be something I would have looked forward to. However, the chance of seeing Jack reprise the role of the Joker, a performance I absolutely fell in love with back in 1989, would have in all likelyhood, lured me back for Batman Triumphant.

Agreed.

 

[LadyKayoss]

Thanks for this! I remember the Jeff Goldblume as the Scarecrow rumor! I remember liking it at the time, and I was disappointed that nothing ever came of it. It's neat to see what actually was planned, and what became of them.

Some of these actually sound kind of interesting. Oh, I'd rather have Nolan's interpretations, but these could've been fun to see. Even Batman:Triumphant. Because after B&R, the series could only go up from there, right? Right?

And, just out of curiosity, was the Year One movie the one where they were thinking of having Aaron Eckhart play Gordon?

 

[Bathead]

Didn't Joss whedon pitch a batman movie around the same time as Nolan? Wonder what it was like?

I heard that, too. I think he could have done a really good job.
In the opening sequence of the first episode of the last season of "Angel", It started out with a young girl walking down a dark alley late at night, when out of the shadows, two vampires leap out at her. She screams. Cut to a shot from behind of a figure all in black, head suddenly jerking towards the sound of the girl's frightened shrieks, the figure breaks into a run, leaping from one roof top to the next, finally grabbing onto the end of a loose antenna (I'm guessing) cable, with his long black leather trench coat flowing out behind him like a cape, he lands between the vampires and the girl and proceeds to beat the crap out of them.
I remember the impression I got at the time, was that I bet Whedon really wants to do a Batman movie, cuz that scene was classic Batman thru and thru. Now I know some don't like the idea of Whedon doing a Bat-flick because he would insert a lot of inappropriate BTVS type teenie humor, but I don't think thst would happen. That one scene half-convinced me that JW "gets" Batman, and would do the character justice. Of course we'll never know for sure, and I could be way off base. If he were to get the nod, I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.