The Batman Appreciation Thread

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Storyboards:






^ This would have been an awesome shot. Kind of Sam Raimi style.

[Brock Landers]

Man, I can't wait for the SEE


Anyone have a cover art?

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These are some behind the scene photos:




Director Tim Burton and Production Designer Anton Furst



Michael Keaton and Batman creator Bob Kane.

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Originally Posted by Brock Landers

Man, I can't wait for the SEE


Anyone have a cover art?

WB has not released the cover yet.

[Brock Landers]

Originally Posted by Neverending

Director Tim Burton and Production Designer Anton Furst

No matter how good the 'mobile from Begins is -- this one is STILL the best.

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Batman Begins doesn't have a batmobile. The tumblor (or however you spell it) is a work in progress. You'll most likely see the final design of the batmobile in the sequel.

[Drogobaggins]

I like the old Batmobile in the vintage comics in Batman's early days. But whaever they do, I think it will be awesome. Spiderman's awesome, I love Superman and the X-men but Batman is, was, and always will be the greatest superhero.

[gnarley]

Originally Posted by Brock Landers

I love the iconic end scene with Batman looking at the batsignal.

I love this too, it's a great image to end the movie with. Both the Batmobile and Batman's costume from the movie are the best live action versions to me.

[Baadshah]

i love the look of Gotham in the first Batman, but than it got worse in each film

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Great avatar Baadshah!

[hei1spawn1]

Did you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

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More deleted scenes and behind the scene pictures.






Yes, the quality is horrible!

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This is an article from the November 1989 issue of Cinefantastique by Alan Jones. It is massive and covers all aspects of the production of Batman.


There's a story BATMAN director Tim Burton likes to tell. In 1978 Burton was still in school and was attending a big comic book convention in San Diego. The event was held just a few months before Richard Donner's big budget SUPERMAN movie was due to open and a Warner Bros press officer was there to give a slide show presentation featuring scenes from the production.

"The ballroom was packed with people," said Burton. "All eyes were glued to the screen with this poor Warner guy trying to keep it all under control. Suddenly, one fan stood up and screamed, 'Superman would never change into his costume on a ledge of a building. I'm going to boycott this movie and tell everyone you are destroying the legend! Intense applause followed as he stormed out of the hall. Wow, I thought. And from that moment on I always knew in the back of my mind the enormous problems facing anyone taking on a film version of a comic book hero.

The newly-married Burton faced more than his fair share of vitriol from vociferous comic book fans during the making of his multi-million dollar BATMAN, which opened to thunderous box office for Warner Bros on June 23. Burton developed the BATMAN script with Sam Hamm at Warners after being assigned to the project when his PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE turned out to be a surprise hit for the studio. Before Hamm, Julie Hickson, who produced Burton's Disney shorts, HANSEL AND GRETEL and FRANKENWEENIE, had written a 30 page treatment.

"I wasn't working on it fulltime," said Burton. "I'd just meet Sam on weekends to discuss the early writing stages. We knocked it into good shape while I directed BEETLE-JUICE, but as a 'go' project it was only greenlighted by Warners when the opening figures for BEETLEJUICE surprised everybody - including myself!"

The BATMAN project had been languishing at Warners for nearly ten years. Producers Mike Uslan and Benjamin Melniker had negotiated the film rights from D.C. Comics in 1979. Several months later Melniker had swung a development deal with Peter Guber's Casablanca Film Works, based at Warner Bros. Melniker and Uslan are credited as executive producers on the film, which is produced by Guber and his partner Jon Peters.

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Uslan and Melniker hired screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz and patterned their production after SUPERMAN (1978), also scripted by Mankiewicz. The project was announced in late 1981 with a budget of $15 million. Set in the near future, Mankiewicz's script followed the SUPERMAN formula, concentrating on Batman's origins, including the murder of his parents. After a phenomenally successful run in Detective Comics in 1939, the character's origin had been out-lined in a two-page introduction in the first issue of Batman, written by Bill Finger and drawn by Bob Kane, published in early 1940. That issue also introduced The Joker in its lead story, and killed him off in the issue's final strip "The Joker Returns." But Kane had second thoughts and redrew the strip's final panel to keep Batman 's primary nemesis going in over two hundred stories.

Though Burton and screenwriter Sam Hamm are credited with turning the direction of BATMAN away from the campy TV series of the '60s back to the dark, noirish Kane and Finger originals, that direction was actually the stated intention of Uslan and Melniker. "The project has to be done right," said Uslan in late 1983, when their version of BATMAN was being readied for a summer 1985 release on a budget of $20 million. "The film must be about the creature of the night and capture the spirit of what Batman was originally about and what the comic, by and large, has reverted to in the last couple of years.

"Uslan had worked part-time for D.C. Comics in the early '70s on a program that taught kids how to read using comic books. He later wrote Batman stories for D.C. Comics while a law student at Indiana University in the mid - '70s. "It was a lifelong ambition come true," said Uslan, "to write a couple of issues of Batman. I began then to think, wouldn't it be great to do a definitive BATMAN movie totally removed from the TV show, totally removed from camp; a version that went back to the original Bob Kane/Bill Finger strips.

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"The Joker was the main menace in the Mankiewicz ver-sion, which also pitted Batman against "normal" street crooks, and introduced Robin only at the very end. Directors associated with the project's development included Joe Dante and Ivan Reitman. Uslan wanted an unknown to play Batman and his cast wish-list included William Holden as Commissioner Gordon and David Niven as Alfred, Bruce Wayne's faithful butler.

But the Uslan/Melniker BATMAN would have been very different from the darkly poetic vision Burton finally realized, as Uslan's 1983 description of their idea of the Batcave illustrates; "When you see it in the film, it’ll be the Batcave that appeared in the comics: the mechanical dinosaur, the giant penny, The Joker's giant playing card. "Though Mankiewicz's script improved on the character's comic book origins - the comic's inspiration for the costume, young Bruce Wayne seeing a bat flying through his bedroom window was dropped - the script never licked the problem of making the comic book elements believable in screen terms:

"The very first BATMAN treatment I read was remarkably similar to SUPERMAN," said Burton. "It had the same light, jokey tone, and the story structure followed Wayne through childhood to his genesis as a crimefighter. I found it all rather disturbing because, while that route was probably fine in the case of SUPERMAN, there was absolutely no exploration or acknowledgement of the character's psychological structure and why he would dress up in a bat suit. In that respect, it was very much like the television series.

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"Burton was wrestling with the comic's psychological aspects, trying to move the storyline in a positive direction, when he first met Hamm. "Sam was a big comic book fan and he knew exactly what to do with the script." Burton credited the success of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight, a graphic novel that explored the psychology of Batman in dark, noirish films, with helping sell Warners on the psychological approach and leap back to the original comics that he and Hamm wanted to take.

"The success of the graphic novels made our ideas far more acceptable, " said Burton. "The movie doesn't wallow in darkness, but without becoming a psychological tone poem, it addresses all the issues without hammering you over the head. The Dark Knight works on the comic page - it seems to be a direct response to all the light- heartedness that had gone before - but it was far too dark stylistically for movie purposes. I think the movie is funny without being campy at the expense of the material. The tone is more consistent than in any other film I've made."

When Hamm got sidelined by last year's writer's strike, Warners brought in Warren Skaaren to help prepare the film's final shooting script. And during filming, Burton did further rewrites with an uncredited Charles McKeown. It was during those rewrites that the plot point was added, making The Joker the killer of young Bruce Wayne's parents, an element not found in the comics that had earlier been part of both the rejected Mankiewicz script and Hickson treatment.

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Though it didn't fit the mold of the BATMAN he wanted to make, Burton said he was a big fan of the '60s TV series starring Adam West. It was the first TV show Burton said he could recall running home to watch. "I loved it," said Burton, who was only seven years old when the show debuted in 1966. "I still do, although I would never say I was ever a fanatic. But, I'm not from the hate school who thinks it's blasphemous to Bruce Wayne's memory and against everything he stood for.

"Burton said he knew that in making BATMAN he would face the ire of comic book fans, "passionate about the minutest details," but said he was equally aware of the pull of fans of the TV show, "a far larger group because it was more in the public eye. " Burton saw his dilemma as a "no win situation" and decided to follow his instincts, come what may.

"The good thing about this movie is if you liked the TV show it shares a similar flavor," said Burton. "I decided to take the movie in the direction I felt was right and remain unshaken by anything that would eventually happen. I was so clear about the course I was taking because what attracted me to the project in the first place were Batman and The Joker - my favorite characters. Like all great larger-than-life images, they can be explored any number of different ways. There is just as much room for the TV show and The Dark Knight as there is for my movie. Why shouldn't there be?"

Still, Burton and nearly everyone connected with the film was surprised by the vociferousness of the comic book brigade's up in arms protest over the casting of Michael Keaton as Batman, first suggested by producer Jon Peters. Burton has long tired of defending his controversial creative decision and merely sighs when the subject is brought up. "There's nothing more to say apart from how comfortable I feel about Michael's contribution," said Burton. "The fan reaction is a surface response. The moment you mention Keaton he immediately brings to mind MR. MOM and NIGHTSHIFT- the comedy/romance sit-com-type picture. Obviously I knew from the beginning that wasn't the road I would ever take. If I had been afraid of that argument, I wouldn't have asked Michael to do it in the first place. I looked at actors who were more the fan image of Batman, but I felt it was such an uninteresting way to go."

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According to the Los Angeles Times, other actors considered for the Batman role included Mel Gibson, Bill Murray, Charlie Sheen and Pierce Brosnan. Burton said he chose Keaton for his acting ability. "Michael is very good," said Burton. “CLEAN AND SOBER proved it. He's funny/dramatic in a way which added to what I was trying to achieve. Taking someone like Michael and making him Batman supported the whole split personality idea. The most interesting aspect I perceived in the story - what it was really about - has now been underscored. Michael's personality tunes into those differences, making him the perfect choice. He has a lot going on inside him, there's an explosive side, he has a temper and a great amount of anger - that was exactly the Bruce Wayne character, not some unknown, handsome, strong hunk."

Also behind Burton's choice of Keaton as Batman was the fact that Jack Nicholson had been cast first as The Joker. Said Burton, "I kept imagining the reviews and hearing the response in my head, 'Well, Jack's great, but the unknown so-and-so is nothing special!' Michael is more straightforward here than he's ever been in any movie. If people have problems with him, then they'll have problems with the movie. But is that my problem? He's a part of the whole. He doesn't call attention to himself, and he's not doing anything but fitting seamlessly into an ensemble cast. Certain actors are so strong, they are often better than the material. Michael has the back-up strength of a great script. When you see the film, he's an actor playing a part that fits in exactly with what I envisioned. End of story. What is all the drama about?!"

The budget of BATMAN was price-tagged in the Los Angeles Times by producer Jon Peters at $35 million, plus $5 million in interest charges. Burton said he hadn't kept track of the film's cost and honestly didn't know the final figure. “All I cared about was the tight, tough schedule," he said. "We did go over budget, but nothing that wasn't really anticipated with a project this size. I was willing to listen regarding certain cuts they wanted made. I'm not the type of person who has to rigidly stick to the script. And when I saw the rough cut, I'm happy to say every scene we shot has made it into the movie."

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At Pinewood, the production sprawled across the studio’s 95-acre back-lot, taking up most of its 18 sound stages. "Sean Young's replacement by Kim Basinger was the first problem we encountered," said Burton. "We were lucky not to lose more time. We had decent weather. Shooting at night didn't cause anything untoward to happen. Overall, we didn't do too badly."

BATMAN was filmed at Pinewood not so much for economy, but because Burton had always wanted to work in Britain. "To be honest, I wanted to get out of the States because of all the hype, hoopla, and controversy the film was attracting," he said. "It was happening in England too, but to a far lesser degree. I didn’t need any extra distractions and coming here pretty much removed the stress level in that area so I could focus on the movie. There are only two places you can make a movie like this- Los Angeles or London. In many ways the crafts-man and artists are better in Britain. Even though the dollar was iffy, I'm glad I decided to base operations at Pinewood. It wouldn't have been cheaper in L.A., just more problematic."

Pivotal to the BATMAN look is the work of production designer Anton Furst, renowned for his elaborate sets on films like HIGH SPIRITS, FULL METAL JACKET, and THE COMPANY OF WOLVES. Furst had been recommended to Burton by effects supervisor Derek Meddings. The designer needed no introduction to Burton, who had sought him out originally to work on BEETLEJUICE. But Burton had been told that Furst wasn't available for BATMAN, due to his commitment on Neil Jordan's HIGH SPIRITS, so another production designer had already been assigned by Warners.

"Burton had been told I couldn't do the film, but he doggedly wouldn't believe it," said Furst. "Tim had wanted me to do BEETLEJUICE, but after two exhausting years working with Stanley Kubrick on FULL METAL JACKET, I didn't feel in any position to take on a new film. Tim had seen THE COMPANY OF WOLVES and had always wanted to work with me. I remember he flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco when he knew was about to stay with friends there. He wanted to approach me before I travelled on to L.A. in case someone else got me first. Tim is really single minded when there's something he feels strongly about. BATMAN he felt strongly about so I replaced the original choice of designer. I wish I'd done BEETLEJUICE now, rather than HIGH SPIRITS!"

Furst budgeted BATMAN while he finished work on the filming of Neil Jordan's ghost story comedy. "The spectacular thing about Tim is he has this extraordinary ability to get onto the pulse of a movie and define its atmosphere and general spirit," said Furst, "He is quite amazing in his observations. That spirit is one of the reasons why I'm sure Warners backed such a young director in the first place. They know he's got something, and even if they don't quite know what it is, they're willing to go along with it. I found his spirit contagious, and we do have a lot in common. We both wear black, for example. There was an instant affinity between us.

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"I don't think I've ever felt so naturally in tune with a director," continued Furst, "conceptually, spiritually, visually, or artistically. There was never any problem because we never fought over anything. I often wanted his advice, but when I came up with four ideas in four different directions, he'd always choose the one I liked most. He was in America when I had to make certain decisions over the Batmobile, so I faxed over numbered designs even though the one I liked was rather radical. When I called him he said, 'I've got the one in front of me, And of course it was the same one. It was always the same one."

Furst stressed that his collaboration with Burton worked so well because they both agreed on the same philosophy of moviemaking. "When we first met, we both independently mentioned how sick we were of the ILM school of film-making," said Furst. "You can't stun with effects any-more, you have to go back to basics. We both agreed the best special effect we could ever remember seeing was the house in PSYCHO because it registers such a strong image. Impact, that's what films are about-not effects. I felt much better after that conversation, knowing he was totally uninterested in camera tricks and the clever, clever approach.

"Texture, attitude and feelings are what [Burton] is a master at," continued Furst. "He's good at getting to the bottom line, or what he terms, 'the broadstroke.' What do we really need out of this shot? We don't want details or the icing on the cake. What do we have to put across? Tim is good at paring down to the lowest common denominator and then embellishing on that because detailing is easy. This takes a lot of intelligence and he's good at articulating this and following those ideas through. The producers always went along with him because he could always articulate why he was doing something."

Anton is the best in his field," said Burton about his design collaborator. "It's always important for me to work with people I like in these important capacities. Since my background is in illustration and design, it's the one area I'm very critical about. I have a tendency to bully departments if I'm not getting what I want. Working with someone who has real artistic talent and a strong input is a nice luxury. It excites me, and it's important for me to like them as friends. Anton's creative spark, and the affinity we had, went beyond a working relationship. We constantly talked back and forth; threw concepts around and discussed our thoughts openly."

Burton and Furst came up with a look for Gotham City - actually identified as New York City in the comics from May 1939 to December l940 - that can only be described as "retro high-tech. " Burton abhorred the term. "I shiver at that description!" he said. "If people say Gotham City looks like BLADE RUNNER, I'll be furious!" Reading the film's reviews, Burton must be positively livid then, because most critics likened its architecture to Ridley Scott's effort, but also to Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL.

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"So few great movie cities have been built," said Burton. "METROPOLIS and BLADE RUNNER seem to be the accepted spectrum. We tried so hard to do something different although people tend to lump things in categories. We conceptualized Gotham City as the reverse of New York in its early days. Zoning and construction was thought of in terms of letting light in. So we decided to take that in the opposite direction and darken everything by building up vertically and cramming architecture together. Gotham City is basically New York caricatured with a mix of styles squashed together - an island of big, tall cartoon buildings textured with extreme designs."

Crucial to Burton 's Gotham City concept was that nothing look new. "Anton textured it beautifully to keep the operatic feel intact," said Burton. "All the sets are an extension of an opera staging and, I think Anton has been very successful with my brief of timelessness. BA TMAN is similar to BEETLEJUICE in that regard - it has a timeless quality with contemporary references making it believable within its own context of reality. I couldn't film any other way although it's dangerous to describe something as timeless because the tendency is to go overboard and make it too stylized. No-one feels anything but removed if you do that."

To create the Gotham City sets on Pinewood's back-lot, Furst had a $5.5 million construction budget. " A third of that money you can 't see as a lot went below the ground," said Furst. "On the back-lot we had to pile drive into the ground to secure the set which had to withstand gale force winds. Imagine if we'd had a winter like the year before when a hurricane hit? It would have been a nightmare - that happened on SUPERMAN when the set was blown away. Concrete pads up to ten-feet deep with metal tubing cemented in meant the set was built to last. We weren't told to make it last for all the proposed BATMAN sequels. But we were filming through a winter, and it was cheaper in the long run to build it properly."

Furst paced out the Pinewood lot looking through a standard medium-wide camera lens to determine the height to build the Gotham City street set to give Burton maximum latitude. Everything was built 40-feet high, with the Cathedral 10-feet taller, so Burton could shoot freely without resorting to models or matte paintings. Only one main street was afforded by the budget, so Furst designed an alleyway in the back, and bridges over the set to provide Burton with a variety of perspectives.

"My job is to give the director as many variations on views as I can," said Furst. 'It was important to lock in the geography early on because we had to have Gotham Square, a big parade going down the main street with the Batwing crashing into the Cathedral. These were strong parameters to lock down so the shots could be planned well in advance."

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Helping to combat the comic book fan backlash against their production was Warners, decision to hire artist Bob Kane, one of Batman's creators, as the project's creative consultant. "Hiring Kane was a very intelligent move," said production designer Anton Furst. "He loved what we were doing. We sent over sketches constantly and he kept sending back these little drawings with notes attached saying, 'Well done boys.' He came over once to visit the set and when he was shown around, he was totally awe-inspired. Very clever, because when it comes to the American media, just to have it sanctioned by the creator makes it very difficult for the [audience] to complain. If Kane goes on record saying his concept has been brilliantly interpreted, the ardent fans buckle down. He must have a massive copyright merchandising deal so it's also in his interest."

Kane had envisioned actor Jack Nicholson in the role of his Joker as far back as 1980, when he drew a likeness of the character over a still of the actor from THE SHINING. "Kane thinks our Joker is better than the original in his strip," said Furst. "Very early on Bob kept saying. 'Get Jack Nicholson. He is The Joker. Get the man!

Nicholson's hiring for the role of The Joker was credited by Anton Furst as a turning point for the, production. . "Getting Jack was very important for the movie," said Furst. "It was so ****ing obvious. I don't think there was ever a part more tailor-made for him. If he turned the part down, Tim and I both agreed we would never feel the same about the picture. As soon as he said yes, there was this great motivating force behind the movie because everyone knew that ingredient was dead right. And he fulfilled all expectations. When you have an actor with that sort of charisma, it heightens everyone else's performance and sets a standard level they all had to rise to. It was mainly because of Jack that the adrenaline ran so high."

Called in to do Nicholson's makeup as The Joker was Nick Dudman, makeup supervisor on George Lucas' WILLOW, who trained under the tutelage of English makeup master, Stuart Freeborn. Dudman was approached by Furst early in pre-production before Nicholson had been signed. "I met Burton and Anton at a time when nobody knew whether BATMAN was a 'go' project or not," said Dudman. "Burton told me there were two aspects to BATMAN that really scared him. One was Batman's cloak, which under no circumstances could look like an old tea cloth. And the other was the look of The Joker .He didn't want him to look like an actor simply wearing white makeup." (Read more on Nick Dudman and his make-up designs here)

BATMAN began its twelve-week shoot in mid-October last year at Pinewood Studios, outside London. Though rumors were rampant during filming that Nicholson and Burton weren't getting along - and that Nicholson was trying to pressure Warner Bros into replacing the director - Burton said Nicholson's improvisational style jibed closely with his own." Jack had a clear idea of the character and played around within those boundaries," said Burton. "I actually prefer improvisation, although preferably with on-page guidelines. He's a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He gets to know the character and then has quite a lot of fun with it. He'd always question how much he should laugh as The Joker and at one point, asked me if he could go really nuts in a scene. But that comes only when both have a clear idea of the proper approach to take. He wouldn't have asked me that if he didn't feel we were in tune with each other.

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"It's not a campy performance at all," said Burton about Nicholson's acclaimed performance as The Joker. "Jack is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real. He's less broad here than in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK. You can't play it too broad when you have white skin and green hair. He understood when it was time to bring his performance down."

In the Batman comics, The Joker was a lab assistant who decided to stage a million dollar robbery. When he dives in a pool of chemical waste to escape Batman, he discovers that his hair has turned green, his skin white, with his red lips spread permanently into a fiendish grin. The Joker's product-tampering victims in the film borrow imagery from the comics where his use of poison left victims with a horrified, mocking grin.

For his role as The Joker, Nicholson had what was known as an "off-the-clock" agreement. His contract specified the number of hours he was entitled to have off each day, from the time he left the studio to the time he reported back for filming. "Nicholson had to leave at a certain point each night - allowing time for us to clean him up -for it to be worth bringing him in the next day," said Dudman. "Anything over two and a half hours in the makeup chair was silly because he would only be on the floor for four hours. Although it was a crippling schedule, we got it down to two hours in all-90 minutes to get everything on and colored up, 20 minutes for the wig placement, and 10 minutes to re-touch and finish."

Dudman said it was a joy to work with Nicholson. "Having Jack around was great," said Dudman. "He's such an amusing person. He made it a pleasure to go to work." And there were fringe benefits. "When he didn't work, neither did we," said Dudman. “As Jack didn't like working weekends or too many days in a row, we always had breathing space to catch up. The prosthetics had specific foam densities and had to be absolutely flawless, so there was a lot of waste. Having extra days to review how many sets and back-ups we had was an added luxury."

Dudman said Nicholson was a great kidder on the set. "I'm a terrible giggler," said Dudman, "so I had to leave the floor several times. But he could be amusing one second and the next turn on the evil with one subtle expression. And the quality wasn't lost through overuse of makeup. My initial terror was always that the makeup would sabotage what he was trying to produce, causing him endless frustration. Jack is one of the top actors in the world. Apart from Dustin Hoffman in LITTLE BIG MAN, I can't think of another celebrity who has consented to a total face change. He told me he wanted to play someone behind a mask, just to get an idea of what it was like. Luckily, we got him at a time he was prepared to experiment. I can see why he spent a lot of time thinking about playing The Joker. It was a brave move."

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Did Burton feel Nicholson was integral to the funding of BATMAN, as has been suggested? "That's hard to say," pondered the director. "My recollection is that Warners said yes before anyone was signed. Warners definitely wanted to make the movie and an actor of Jack's calibre only helped raise the level of perception a few more notches."

Anti-Keaton comic book protesters also took to task Bob Ringwood's super-hero costume design for the film because it incorporated fake muscles, cloak-cum-wings, and a rather large cod-piece. "The idea was to humanize Batman," said Burton about the design of Batman's costume. "He dresses like this for theatrical effect. We had to find a psychological basis for his dress code. You can't just do, 'Well, I'm avenging the death of my parents - Oh!, a bat's flown in through the window .Yes, that's it. I'll become a Batman!' That's all stupid comic book stuff and we don't explore it at all. He dresses up as a bat because he wants to have an amazing visual impact. It all gets away from the fact he's just being a simple vigilante, something I always loathed about the character. He's creating an opera wherever he goes to provoke a strong, larger-than-life reaction. He switches identities to become something else entirely, so why wouldn't he overdo it?"

As for the costume's enlarged codpiece, Burton sees nothing wrong with injecting a little sex into the comic imagery. " Aren't comics always about sex anyway?" he said. "Teens like them because they tune in to sexual fantasy at the exact time they're going through puberty. Bob's design was less an outfit, more a complete body suit. It isn't tights and underwear worn on the outside, but a complete operatic costume to over- state the image Batman has of himself. Nor is it ROBOCOP inspired. We don't make as much of it as the comic fans have - it's just an image-conscious costume.

Robin, Batman's sidekick, isn't in the finished film, though Burton and Hamm included the character in the shooting script. Burton made the decision to drop Robin shortly before filming began because he felt the character's introduction slowed the movie's pace. "We could never get Robin in before the last third of the movie,", said Burton of the script dynamics. "By that time we just wanted to get on with the story rather than introduce somebody else new in tights, simply because the comic lore dictated it. Luckily, when I made the decision to cut him out entirely - something that made everyone nervous - that comic book issue was published where the fans voted to kill off Robin. The timing was very helpful in convincing Warners Robin didn't matter."

Like BEETLEJUICE, the supporting cast of BATMAN is very "off the wall," a penchant that is becoming one of the director's trademarks. "I love a certain kind of casting," said Burton. " Jack Palance was the only person who could possibly portray Nicholson's boss. He is one of the few living actors who had the emotional weight and authority to counterpoint Nicholson's strong character. Jerry Hall [Palance's girlfriend] doesn't play herself, although you know she's a famous model. Half the time she's wearing a disfiguring mask and a lot of power is registered as a result of blurring her real life with her character role. People will read that and say, 'Campy, campy, campy. 'But it isn't that at all. I think it's strong since she's a recognizable figure as a model, therefore it becomes much more resonant. I'm so happy with that sort of trade-off casting."

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The Palance and Hall roles, as well as Robert Wuhl as newspaper reporter Alexander Knox, were ones created especially for the script. From the comics, Burton cast Pat Hingle as Police Commissioner Gordon, a friend of Bruce Wayne's who is unaware of his associate's crime fighting alter ego. By the film's end, Gordon introduces the comic's famed Batsignal searchlight as a means of calling the crime-fighter. Alfred, Wayne's faithful butler wasn't introduced in the comics until May, 1943, but, played by superb English character actor Michael Gough, is in on Batman's film origins from the beginning.

Batman's comic book girlfriend is played by Kim Basinger, who replaced originally cast Sean Young after she broke her leg early in the filming. "The Vicki Vale character went from brunette to blonde - an interesting switch which didn't phase me as much as I thought it would," said Burton. "Incidentally, Kim isn't producer Jon Peter's girlfriend. She didn't get the part through favoritism. That was yet more of the salacious gossip we've had to put up with. We sued an English tabloid newspaper over that report."

Music for BATMAN was composed by Danny Elfman, who scored Burton's PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE and BEETLEJUICE. Whereas Burton used Harry Belafonte calypsos on the sound track of BEETLEJUICE, BATMAN features the more contemporary songs of Prince, almost universally panned by critics and audiences alike, as being out of place in the film.

"BATMAN doesn't have as blatant a sound track as, say, TOP GUN," said Burton in defence of Prince. "The songs in the film I would call scored source pieces. They are integrated seamlessly into the sound track. Prince worked with Elfman to ensure the songs didn't stand out when, for example, the radio is switched on. Our eyes are not on high volume sound track sales." Asked why he wasn't daring enough to include the BATMAN TV theme somewhere, Burton just shrugged.

BATMAN is heavy on the special visual effects, supervised by Oscar-winner Derek Meddings and his Shepperton Studios-based Meddings Magic Camera Company. The film's mechanical effects were supervised by John Evans, with whom Meddings worked on MOONRAKER. For a director whose filmic oeuvre is heavy on the effects work, Burton has a refreshingly non-challant attitude about their use, which is probably why his films utilize effects so well. "I don't like relying too heavily on effects," said Burton. "In BEETLEJUICE I treated this area very matter-of-factly, using them like a bridge between two shots. That's my overall attitude - integrate them into the narrative rather than make them stand out."

Warners is said to be so confident about BATMAN's smash box-office potential that a sequel is already in the works. Names like Robin Williams as The Riddler and Danny DeVito as The Penguin have been mentioned in conjunction with a second adventure supposedly to shoot next May. Warners bought the $2 million Gotham City set on Pinewood's back-lot to use on two future productions, and are protecting their investment behind 24-hour guard dog fences. "The set is costing $20,000 a week to keep up because of scaffolding hire charges," said Furst. "So when they get around to making a sequel, it probably would have cost Warners only $¼ million to resume it, as opposed to building it from scratch. Even the cost of renovation on top probably means it was worth keeping the set up."

Burton said there was no point talking about sequels until his movie's performance at the box-office can be analyzed. "I don't want anything to do with a sequel anyway," said Burton. "Sequels are only worthwhile if they give you the opportunity to do something new and interesting. It has to go beyond that, really, because you do the first for the thrill of the unknown. A sequel wipes all that out, so you must explore the next level. I don't rule out anything if the challenge is exciting."

With a rash of comic book heroes about to hit the big screen, the onus is on BATMAN to prove the trend is a worthwhile investment. And Burton feels good about that. "BATMAN was the toughest job I've ever had to do," he said. "Actually, that isn't saying much because I had to work in a restaurant once, which was far harder!

"It was tough from the point of having no time to regroup after the script revisions," he continued. "I never had time to think about them. I always felt like I was catching up. I worked six days a week and exhausted myself because I feared I wasn't doing a good job. I was afraid my mental condition wasn't right for me to be making this movie, and even now I have amnesia about certain times during the shooting. But it's the movie 1 wanted to make and it's true to the spirit of why I wanted to do it in the first place. It's something new and original, not a copy of anything that's gone before. It has a spirit of its own that has transferred to the screen. And isn't that what you want when you go to the movies?"