Batman is one of the most popular superheroes, no less than Superman. Because of this high popularity, many people tried to make Batman’s story a movie, not just in the comics. However, many attempts at filmmaking were ultimately unsuccessful. Then, what Batman movies failed to be produced?
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The Batman movie that failed to get produced!
7. Return of The Batman
The first unproduced Batman movie was Michael Uslan’s. Since the emergence of Batman in the TV series played by Adam West, many felt that Batman was not suitable to be featured in a movie theater.
This is what prompted Michael Uslan to create a movie script titled Return Of The Batman which was planned to launch in the late 1970s.
Based on available information, the script written by Michael Uslan was not originally intended to create a full movie theater film like today. The script was presented as proof that Batman could be a character in a movie theater. This script then became the basis for starting various Batman film projects until this modern era.
At that time, Batman was still identical to the image of Adam West’s character, so film producers in Hollywood were less interested in realizing the concepts or ideas in Uslan’s script.
According to Uslan, Hollywood producers even considered Batman as a funny character as he appeared in classic comics. However, it was fortunate that Tim Burton finally capitalized on the script concept to make the Batman movie in 1989.
6. The Batman
After experiencing rejection from various studios in Hollywood that made his Batman movie fail to produce, Michael Uslan decided to establish his own film company, BatFilm Productions.
He even dared to buy the copyright to make a Batman movie, quite a risky move at the time. Next, they recruited James Bond and Superman writer Tony Mankiewicz to craft the story of The Batman in 1983.
Tony had a simple idea for this movie, which was to mix the successful elements of a Superman movie with the grim, dark and realistic elements of James Bond.
The announcement about this movie was made in late 1983 and it was planned to be released in mid-1985 with a production cost of US$20 million. The cast of the movie was the center of attention.
The actor who played Batman was someone lesser known. David Niven played the role of Alfred, William Holden was Jim Gordon, and David Bowie played The Joker.
After the success of Ghostbusters, Ivan Reitman was previously chosen as the director and chose Bill Murray to play Batman.
Unfortunately, the film’s script ran into problems and Reitman chose to abandon the project. The screenplay was revised nine times by nine different writers, before Tim Burton finally finished it.
5. Batman Continues
After the release of Batman Returns, it seems that Warner Brothers was not satisfied with Tim Burton. Although fans loved the tone of the story and the darker style of the movie, the studio was still not satisfied.
Commercial reasons ultimately prompted Tim Burton to abandon the Batman film project. In fact, he had actually planned a trilogy for the movie.
Batman Continues was one of Tim Burton’s planned films, with The Riddler as the main villain and the emergence of the character Robin. However, unfortunately, all the plans that Tim Burton had laid out went awry due to the changes that Warner Bros. made.
Warner Bros. didn’t seem too satisfied with the concept that Tim Burton proposed. As a result, Burton decided to step down from the project.
Not only Burton, the lead actor, Michael Keaton, also chose to cancel his $15 million contract because he was disappointed with Warner Bros. Finally, they chose Val Kilmen as a replacement and continued with Batman Forever.
4. Batman: Beyond
Batman: Beyond is a series that Batman fans love because it features an aging Bruce Wayne who no longer plays Batman.
In this series, Terry McGinnis, who became the Batman of the future. In 1999, Warner Bros had plans to bring the story of Batman: Beyond into a feature film format.
Paul Dini and Alan Burnet, the creators of the characters, were called in to write the script. Boaz Yakin was set as the director for the movie adaptation. The first draft of the movie is actually ready for production.
However, this Batman movie project was eventually canceled because Yakin wanted to show a darker side of Batman and did not hesitate to include harsh words.
Of course, WB is not happy about this. Moreover, this could damage the image of Batman: Beyond as a kid-friendly character in the series.
So far, information about the planned movie project has been minimal. Many fans are disappointed that this movie project finally failed.
3. The Dark Knight Return Year One
Joel Schumacher, before quitting the Batman franchise, actually he still has several concepts for the next Batman movie. One of them is that he once proposed the idea of making the Year One story by Frank Miller, which describes Bruce Wayne traveling to various parts of the world before finally returning to Gotham and turning into Batman.
Joel Schumacher’s concept was later realized in Batman Begins, one of the series in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.
Not only Year One, another story concept from Frank Miller that will be adopted is The Dark Knight Returns. Darren Aronofsky has been chosen as the director of the movie and he is keen to cast Clint Eastwood as Batman.
WB agreed to that and has already cast actors such as Aaron Eckhart to play Jim Gordon, while for the role of Batman, auditions have already taken place which also included Ben Affleck and Christian Bale.
However, the story plot for this film was deemed too risky and scary to appear in theaters. As a result, they were unable to continue the production of the movie.
2. Batman Vs Superman and Justice League (2000)
Before the MarvelMarvel adalah sebuah perusahaan hiburan Amerika yang terkenal karena menciptakan berbagai karakter superhero yang ikonik.... More Cinematic Universe released the Avengers movie as a big crossover, DC almost did it first in the 2000s. There were two film projects that almost realized the concept.
The first project is a possible sequelArti sekuel dalam film mengacu pada film yang dibuat sebagai kelanjutan dari film sebelumnya. Dalam... More to Tim Burton or Schumacher’s Batman. In the plot, the Joker returns.
The Joker killed Bruce Wayne’s new wife, Elizabeth, while they were on their honeymoon. The incident prompted Bruce to return to being Batman, and this time, Batman is scarier than ever.
Superman tried to prevent Batman from killing the Joker. Not only that, other superheroes are also trying to do the same. These heroic figures then realize that their strategy to defeat The Joker and Lex Luthor was wrong.
The project was originally set to release in 2004, but Warner Bros (WB) eventually decided to abandon the project and focus on developing Superman: Flyby. In 2009, WB tried to start a new movie project involving these heroes, namely Justice League: Mortal.
The plot centers on these heroes’ attempts to convince Batman that everyone has the potential to be good after he creates the Brother Eye satellite. Unfortunately, this film project was eventually canceled due to the writers’ protest, as it stands today.
1. Ben Affleck Movie
When Ben Affleck was first announced as Batman, many fans were excited, especially after seeing his acting in Batman v Superman. This prompted Warner Bros to approve Affleck’s plan to make a solo Batman movie for the future.
But unfortunately, after a series of less successful films such as Suicide Squad and Justice league, the plan to make this solo Batman film was finally canceled.
Affleck had previously written and prepared everything for the movie. However, after failing, Ben Affleck decided to step down from the role of Batman.
According to our information, Ben Affleck’s The Batman will be set in Arkham Asylum and will explore the crazier side of Bruce Wayne. Reportedly, the movie will reveal the “dark side of Batman” which will make fans happy.
It is indeed a pity that Affleck’s The Batman movie project finally failed production. The reason is, many fans are eager to see more heroic actions from Ben Affleck’s Batman character, even though the character has appeared in BvS, Suicide Squad, and Justice League. Considering that Arkham Asylum is also rarely featured in feature films, this is indeed a shame.
Making a Batman movie seems to be a complicated task as there are various aspects that need to be taken into consideration, especially by movie studios. As a result, many Batman movies failed to be realized. Batman fans ended up feeling disappointed because some of these film projects were not successfully produced.
