00:00I want you to do me a favor. I want you to tell all your friends about me.
00:04What are you?
00:06I'm Batman.
00:07To celebrate the impending 30th anniversary of Batman, The Hollywood Reporter is taking
00:12a look back at the 1989 film that kick-started a box office franchise which has seen its
00:16fair share of triumphs, tragedies and some very strong opinions as to who should don
00:21that mask and cape. The crazy thing is Batman almost never made it to the big screen.
00:25The film, which made a huge $411.5 million globally, took 10 years to come to fruition
00:31after being rejected from nearly every Hollywood studio, something which shocked Michael
00:35Uslan who had risked everything to purchase the rights to the film on October 3, 1979.
00:41Uslan had been teaching the world's first ever college-accredited course on comic books when
00:45he caught the attention of Sol Harrison, the vice president of DC Comics in New York, and
00:49was very quickly offered a job. However, when Uslan expressed his desire to buy the rights
00:54to the film property, Harrison pleaded with him to reconsider, saying,
00:57"...don't you understand that after Batman went off the air on TV, the brand became as
01:01dead as a dodo? Nobody's interested in Batman anymore."
01:05And so began the decade that Uslan refers to as a human endurance contest until Uslan
01:10and his business partner Benjamin Melnicka pitched their idea over the phone to Peter Goober,
01:14an executive at Casablanca Records, which was planning to launch a film division.
01:17Goober took to the duo's vision and agreed to put up the development money, instigating
01:22the project's journey to the big screen.
01:24Batman bounced around from studio to studio until finally landing at Warner Brothers
01:28with producer John Peters, and the team then turned to animator-turned-director Tim Burton,
01:32who was coming off of two box office hits, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice.
01:37Uslan remembers the key words that Burton told him regarding this Batman adaptation, explaining that,
01:41Tim said,
01:42"...this is not a movie about Batman. If we're going to do it seriously, this is a movie about Bruce
01:47Wayne."
01:48The drive to make a serious movie about the protector of Gotham City meant that the casting
01:52of comedic actor Michael Keaton in the titular role was met with intense backlash.
01:56In fact, tens of thousands of letters were sent to Warner Brothers' pictures in protest.
02:01Now you want to get nuts? Come on! Let's get nuts.
02:05Now at first, Uslan had the same mentality as the fans.
02:08I thought they were joking when they told me Michael Keaton was cast, he recalls.
02:11We've been at this for seven and a half years now to do a dark and serious Batman,
02:15and they appear to want to hire a comedian. But after seeing Keaton's performance in the
02:201988 addiction drama Clean and Sober, Uslan realized that the Mr. Mum actor was in fact
02:25the right person for the job.
02:26Keaton's casting proved to be just the first controversy in assembling the ensemble.
02:31Blade Runner Sean Young was originally cast in the role of Vicki Vale, the photographer
02:34and love interest for Bruce Wayne, but things took a turn after a table read in front of
02:38Warner Brothers executives. Recalls Robert Wool, who played the journalist Alexandra Knox in the film,
02:44more than a few of Sean's lines were lost in the rewrite and about halfway through she made a
02:47comment that,
02:50And then proceeded for the rest of the reading to read in a monosyllable, monotone voice.
02:55It sucked all the energy out of the room. After that, more Vicki Vale was added to the script,
03:00but the way she sabotaged the rest of the reading with all the brass there on the most expensive
03:04movie of all time, people's jobs are on the line. That was a really touchy moment.
03:09As it turns out, as principal photography was set to begin, Young had a horse riding accident
03:13that left her unable to perform the role. To some Warner Brothers executives, this was a
03:18blessing in disguise. The fact is, they were very happy to replace her, says Wool.
03:22Michelle Pfeiffer was producer John Peters' top choice to take over the role of Vicki Vale,
03:26but this option was shut down by Keaton himself as he and Pfeiffer had previously dated and broken up.
03:31Says Wool at the time,
03:32Michael told me he was trying to get back with his ex-wife. Keaton was firmly, and underlined firmly,
03:37against that, casting a Pfeiffer, and he and Peters got into it.
03:41In a classic case of things coming full circle, Pfeiffer of course went on to replace a pregnant
03:45Annette Bening in the Batman sequel, 1992's Batman Returns, portraying Selina Kyle slash
03:50Catwoman to much praise.
03:54And so the role of Vicki Vale went to Kim Basinger and she was immediately asked to fly to the
03:58set
03:59in London, bringing with her her own creative vision for the character and how she would fit into Gotham.
04:04I wanted her to be tough in the newsroom, but I wanted her to be feminine like Cinderella,
04:08Basinger says.
04:09In one scene, Vale lies about her weight in a line that would never fly today, but could fly
04:14under the radar in 1989.
04:16How much do you weigh?
04:18About 108, I think.
04:20I loved that moment in the movie when we're supposed to go up on the grapple gun and Batman
04:23asks Vicki's weight and she says, 108, Basinger says.
04:26Body shaming wasn't a thing then.
04:28You couldn't be skinny enough.
04:30It wasn't pro-curves like Kim Kardashian.
04:32I do love the joke with Vale and how Batman calls her out on it.
04:35Michael could always pull off that kind of dialogue.
04:38Not so easy to pull off, literally.
04:40Batman's rubber suit with Basinger expressing her sympathy for Keaton for having to wear it.
04:44I know they paid Michael well for the role, but that thing was built like a car.
04:48So heavy and hot, she recalls.
04:50He was in that all day for months, turning shoulder to shoulder to see.
04:54To read so much more on the making of 1989's Batman, head to THR.com.
04:58For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Lyndsey Rodrigues.
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