The Power and the Glitter!

[Brainbin]

Alright guys, update either tomorrow or the next day. Right now, can I ask my readers what they think of my retcon in my last post, and who they think would be a good actress to play Carrie Kelly/Robin in a film based on The Dark Knight Rises in this era?

All right, some active OTL child actresses from the era who might be able to "pass" for about thirteen c. 1995: Christina Ricci, Michelle Williams, Anna Chlumsky, Claire Danes, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rachael Leigh Cook, Natalie Portman, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Alba, Julia Stiles, Larisa Oleynik, Kirsten Dunst, Jessica Biel, Anna Paquin, Lacey Chabert, Thora Birch, and Schuyler Fisk. That's all familiar faces, and assuming that you don't use someone considerably older for the part (which has always been par for the course in Hollywood). Or that you don't exercise your creative licence and cast an "unknown", which I might advise if none of these actresses fit the role.

He’d have a while to redeem himself (especially with the help of an old friend and an… interesting confirmation process).

That "old friend" wouldn't happen to be the only collaborator of his who has an even worse reputation than he does at this point IOTL, would it?

Of course, a less successful Forrest Gump might be helpful for Zemeckis in the long term, as it would help him avoid what I have dubbed the James Cameron Effect: the tendency of a movie director to slack off on making movies after creating a huge hit in the prime of their career. In Cameron’s case, that was his decade-long absence from directing after Titanic. In Zemeckis’ case… well, yeah.

Zemeckis I might argue suffers more from the George Lucas Effect: He stops making movies that people actually want to watch. Seriously, look at his filmography after Forrest Gump. It's a ghost town. Especially after he insisted on directing only motion-capture movies. That's when his career nosedived straight into the Uncanny Valley.

(Note to apologists of his latter-day movies: I'm sorry. I'm glad you liked them, but their impact has been negligible at best.)

Your wish is my command.

Here come the Men in Black! The Galaxy Defenders! Here come the Men in Black! They won't let you remember!

It would be at least twenty-eight different varieties of cool, including several varieties that man has yet to discover even today.

Of course, with studio heads almost certainly trying to reboot the Superman franchise (presumably with a new leading man), a film featuring Christopher Reeves as Supes released at around the same time would be somewhat awkward.

Indeed, but worth noting (assuming that you're butterflying away his tragic accident ITTL, and how could you not?) is that he was finally beginning to move past his typecasting as Superman by the mid-1990s IOTL, and he might not cotton to being lured back to the role, even for material far superior to III and IV, except maybe for loads of money and (ironically) top billing. We're talking a Jack Nicholson-level deal, here. The studios may well balk.

Hmm, if it was live-action, would it be like a darker, grittier version of Theodore Rex?

Those creepy dinosaur puppets/animatronics are one thing I definitely do not miss about the 1990s (Hated the sitcom, too.)

Toy Story’s still happening, btw.

Which I went to see in the Cinesphere IOTL, as a child, during its original release (on a class trip, no less!) I wonder if history might repeat itself ITTL

 

[vultan]

All right, some active OTL child actresses from the era who might be able to "pass" for about thirteen c. 1995: Christina Ricci, Michelle Williams, Anna Chlumsky, Claire Danes, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rachael Leigh Cook, Natalie Portman, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Alba, Julia Stiles, Larisa Oleynik, Kirsten Dunst, Jessica Biel, Anna Paquin, Lacey Chabert, Thora Birch, and Schuyler Fisk. That's all familiar faces, and assuming that you don't use someone considerably older for the part (which has always been par for the course in Hollywood). Or that you don't exercise your creative licence and cast an "unknown", which I might advise if none of these actresses fit the role.

Thanks, Brainbin! I had thought of some of these names, but this is a nice compilation. I’m still deciding, though.

That "old friend" wouldn't happen to be the only collaborator of his who has an even worse reputation than he does at this point IOTL, would it?

I assume you are talking about Michael Jackson, so my last spoiler on this topic for now is that MJ has nothing to do with Landis’ government career in this story.

Zemeckis I might argue suffers more from the George Lucas Effect: He stops making movies that people actually want to watch. Seriously, look at his filmography after Forrest Gump. It's a ghost town. Especially after he insisted on directing only motion-capture movies. That's when his career nosedived straight into the Uncanny Valley.

(Note to apologists of his latter-day movies: I'm sorry. I'm glad you liked them, but their impact has been negligible at best.)

Well, I liked Castaway…

Here come the Men in Black! The Galaxy Defenders! Here come the Men in Black! They won't let you remember!

Wait… who’s saying Mr. Smith will be involved in this project?

Indeed, but worth noting (assuming that you're butterflying away his tragic accident ITTL, and how could you not?) is that he was finally beginning to move past his typecasting as Superman by the mid-1990s IOTL, and he might not cotton to being lured back to the role, even for material far superior to III and IV, except maybe for loads of money and (ironically) top billing. We're talking a Jack Nicholson-level deal, here. The studios may well balk.

Plausibility getting in the way of a Cool Idea? Not on my watch!

In all seriousness, you guys will just have to wait to see how The Dark Knight plays out…

Which I went to see in the Cinesphere IOTL, as a child, during its original release (on a class trip, no less!) I wonder if history might repeat itself ITTL

It very well could!

Those creepy dinosaur puppets/animatronics are one thing I definitely do not miss about the 1990s (Hated the sitcom, too.)

…wait, so I take it you won’t like my concept for a giant film and television franchise based on Carnosaur?

 

[Electric Monk]

@vultan
My blushes. I know you did a CG post but (once I have a computer again) I'd be happy to write a background kinda post on the subject. Especially since I imagine, given a few months, you'll mention other movies using CG and it can be a kind of past/present/future look at CG.

And the retcon in politics looks reasonable enough to me.

@Brainbin
Man I love the Cinesphere. Ooh! Maybe that submarine video ride thing at Ontario Place could be a superhero ride! (Does that still exist?) Oh, and I'll abuse vultan's goodwill briefly: check your email .

 

[Brady Kj]

I like Claire Danes. But since I haven't read The Dark Knight Returns, I can't say if she's a good fit for the role.

 

[phx1138]

Hey, it’s one of the best comedy monster movies of all time.

Yep.

Hmm, if it was live-action, would it be like a darker, grittier version of Theodore Rex?

No. More like Sam Peckinpah does "The Good Guys", with dinos.

I personally find the concept of the comic hilarious. I’ll see what I can do.

TY. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a book as much. (JLI & JLE were pretty funny for most of the run, too.)

That's leaving aside the serious stuff, like Scout or Sable...

 

[Orville_third]

Incidentally, Marvel may wind up merging or being bought out by Disney earlier...I once was privileged to visit the WDW Entertainment Research Center and one of the items there was a Marvel annual report from a few years prior, when Disney was in some form of negotiations with Marvel-signed by Stan Lee, no less!

 

[Brainbin]

Man I love the Cinesphere. Ooh! Maybe that submarine video ride thing at Ontario Place could be a superhero ride! (Does that still exist?)

As it happens, Ontario Place (except for the Marina and the Molson Ampitheatre) is closed for renovation. So it's a pretty good bet that it won't exist when the park re-opens

Oh, and I'll abuse vultan's goodwill briefly: check your email .

Why not make it a vicious circle? Check your email, too. (Sorry, vultan)

Incidentally, Marvel may wind up merging or being bought out by Disney earlier...I once was privileged to visit the WDW Entertainment Research Center and one of the items there was a Marvel annual report from a few years prior, when Disney was in some form of negotiations with Marvel-signed by Stan Lee, no less!

How far back was this? If it's early enough to prevent Quesada from becoming Editor-in-Chief, that could spare Marvel a great deal of notoriety (as the man had an almost dogmatic obsession with breaking up Spider-Man and Mary Jane, who had already been married before the POD, and did so despite overwhelming opposition from fans, and even among the Marvel staff, including writer J. Michael Straczynski). Of course, far more pressing ITTL is how the Spider-Man movie will actually turn out.

 

[Kalvan]

Incidentally, Marvel may wind up merging or being bought out by Disney earlier...I once was privileged to visit the WDW Entertainment Research Center and one of the items there was a Marvel annual report from a few years prior, when Disney was in some form of negotiations with Marvel-signed by Stan Lee, no less!

It probably had something to do with what would eventually become 4 Kids Network after Fox sold it and the Family Channel to Disney, rather than acquiring Mervel itself. After all, this was the era of the Haim Saban Spider-Man and Spider-Man Unlimited and X-Men, Mutant X, and X Men: Mutant Academy.

 

[vultan]

Update pushed to tomorrow in order to add more material to it.

 

[vultan]

Remember that extra material I promised? Well, I've been a lot more busy than I thought I would be, especially with the fact that what I've been thinking about requires a lot more Research than what I'm able to put in at the moment. I'm not going to have the time to do any typing period for a couple days, so I thought I'd just give you guys what I have so far.

---

Development on The Dark Knight

Even though Batman Returns was a financial success [1], Warner Bros. felt the film could have made more money and decided to make the series more “edgy” [2]. Tim Burton, director of the first two films in the franchise, had built a substantial filmography on the side since the 1989 release of Batman, directing Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood and producing The Nightmare Before Christmas. Producers now felt that Burton’s “brand” had become too tied to whimsical movies to be taken seriously as the director for the franchise, especially with his heightened profile. Burton was therefore asked by Warner Bros. to restrict himself to the role of producer. He agreed on the condition that he would have some say on his successor. The studio presented him with a shortlist of directors they were considering, and Burton narrowed them down to three options: John Singleton, the Academy Award-nominated director of the gritty urban drama Boyz n the Hood, Joel Schumacher, an avid Batman fan known for his work directing The Lost Boys, and Sam Raimi, at the time probably best known for his horror movies such as The Evil Dead franchise. Burton was drawn to Raimi, as he had known incidentally that Raimi had been turned down the opportunity to direct several superhero movies in recent years, including Batman and Watchmen. He was impressed by Raimi’s effort in Darkman, and felt that “…(Raimi) could make a hell of a Batman movie if he had (the) budget.” Tim Burton officially requested in late 1993 that Raimi be his successor, and the studio accepted on the reasoning that the new director had the ability to keep all of the darkness of the series without any of the “oddness”.

The decision had been made early on to make an adaptation of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. Along with Alan Moore’s Watchmen, it had been credited with creating the “dark and gritty” trend that had gripped the comic book industry in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Set in a dystopian, near-future Gotham City, where Bruce Wayne had retired the Batman persona and superheroes as a whole have been driven into retirement or hiding, with the exception of a government-employed Superman. With crime rampant and “the return of an old foe”, the Dark Knight is compelled to break his decade-long absence from the streets and return to crime-fighting. Frank Miller had been offered the opportunity to adapt his own work into a screenplay, but he turned it down, temporarily demoralized due to the failures of RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, which he had penned. Sam Raimi and his brother, Ivan, would work on the script instead, aided by a then-unknown screenwriter named Robert Rodat. Certain changes were made to the story to boost the realism (for instance, the “Mutants” gang was replaced by more mundane unnamed street gangs), but overall the final product was very faithful to the original comic book. It was Rodat who actually came up with the idea to name the film The Dark Knight (the studio had wished to give the movie a title other than The Dark Knight Returns, in order to avoid confusion with Batman Returns. Bolstered by the positive pre-release industry reaction to James Cameron’s Watchmen, filming was slated to begin in August of 1994. [3]

Now for the cast…

...

[1] Somewhat more so than historically, in fact.

[2] Again, the early 1990’s were slightly worse in America here, socially and economically. Though the problems have mostly subsided by the middle of the decade (just like in OTL), the aftereffects will still be felt down the line.

[3] Historically filming began a month later. Here, there is a smoother preproduction process caused by a more amicable transfer of power between Burton and Raimi.

---

For what it's worth, casting was not what I've been having trouble with in my writing- I'm withholding that temporarily to build suspense.

Comments? Thoughts? Critiques?

 

[Brainbin]

Even though Batman Returns was a financial success, Warner Bros. felt the film could have made more money and decided to make the series more “edgy” [...] Producers now felt that Burton’s “brand” had become too tied to whimsical movies to be taken seriously as the director for the franchise, especially with his heightened profile.

This entire section makes for some masterful historical irony - well done!

The studio presented him with a shortlist of directors they were considering, and Burton narrowed them down to three options: John Singleton, the Academy Award-nominated director of the gritty urban drama Boyz n the Hood, Joel Schumacher, an avid Batman fan known for his work directing The Lost Boys, and Sam Raimi, at the time probably best known for his horror movies such as The Evil Dead franchise.

It amuses me that Schumacher is still in the running ITTL, because he once made a movie about teen vampires. And in a way it's a shame that Singleton was passed over, but you've already promised a more interesting career for him than the one he ended up with IOTL. And then there's Raimi...

The decision had been made early on to make an adaptation of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

Also a shame that the Burton Batman series is over. I guess it's simply doomed, no matter the timeline.

Frank Miller had been offered the opportunity to adapt his own work into a screenplay, but he turned it down, temporarily demoralized due to the failures of RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, which he had penned.

The big question, which thankfully you don't have to answer, is whether or not Miller had, for lack of a better term, gone crazy by this point.

Now for the cast…

Another tease! You're incorrigible

For what it's worth, casting was not what I've been having trouble with in my writing- I'm withholding that temporarily to build suspense.

Just as long as we don't have to wait like we did for the Oscar results

 

[vultan]

This entire section makes for some masterful historical irony - well done!

Thanks!

It amuses me that Schumacher is still in the running ITTL, because he once made a movie about teen vampires. And in a way it's a shame that Singleton was passed over, but you've already promised a more interesting career for him than the one he ended up with IOTL. And then there's Raimi...

Actually, my reasoning for keeping Schumacher on the short-list is that, as soon as he got whiff of the news that there was an opening for the director's seat, he'd be the type to lobby hard for it.

Also a shame that the Burton Batman series is over. I guess it's simply doomed, no matter the timeline.

Actually, the premise isn't immediately incompatible with the continuity of the series. I expect there to be a bit more connection with this film to the previous installments in the series than Batman Forever had. I may edit my update to make the connection a bit more clear.

Just as long as we don't have to wait like we did for the Oscar results

We'll see...

 

[Glen]

Remember for your Dark Knight that Bruce Wayne/Batman is really Middle Age - the fact that he is pulling this stuff off at his age and has that gruff in my day vibe going is part of his appeal. Do not cast a kid in this role, please!

 

[Glen]

Oh, and I do like the idea of Sam Raimi directing.

 

[Falkenburg]

Coming Soon to a cinema near you..... Bruce Campbell IS The Joker! (Pretty Please?)

Falkenburg

 

[Orville_third]

Coming Soon to a cinema near you..... Bruce Campbell IS The Joker! (Pretty Please?)

Falkenburg

He HAS to be in there! (So, likely, does his brother, Ted.) Does this mean no Briscoe County, Jr., Hercules or Xena?

 

[Brady Kj]

I think Campbell's too young. I'd bring back Jack Nicholson.

 

[Brainbin]

I think Campbell's too young. I'd bring back Jack Nicholson.

Jack Nicholson would be way too expensive. His final bill for services rendered (taking his upfront salary, plus share of the grosses, plus share of the merchandising revenues) was over $60 million (in 1989 dollars; if we tie inflation to ticket prices, we're looking at nearly double that in present value). Even the unadjusted $60 million is still regarded as the all-time biggest payday for any actor in a single film. Bare minimum, he'll want that again. (He allegedly offered to return for the never-made Batman Triumphant - the would-be sequel to Batman & Robin - for $150 million, in 1998 dollars). CGI and effects budgets will be much higher, as a proportion of the filmmaking budget, in 1994/95 than they were when the original Batman was made. They simply couldn't afford to bring Nicholson back, even if they wanted to.

 

[Brady Kj]

Then I'd still look at older actors before considering Bruce Campbell. He wouldn't be bad, if there's nobody in the right age range. Mark Hamill wouldn't be bad, either.

 

[phx1138]

All right, some active OTL child actresses from the era who might be able to "pass" for about thirteen c. 1995: Christina Ricci, Michelle Williams, Anna Chlumsky, Claire Danes, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rachael Leigh Cook, Natalie Portman, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Alba, Julia Stiles, Larisa Oleynik, Kirsten Dunst, Jessica Biel, Anna Paquin, Lacey Chabert, Thora Birch, and Schuyler Fisk.

To which let me add this, this, & this. The definition of "child actor" seems a bit flexible...but they may be of use.

Remember for your Dark Knight that Bruce Wayne/Batman is really Middle Age - the fact that he is pulling this stuff off at his age and has that gruff in my day vibe going is part of his appeal. Do not cast a kid in this role, please!

Absolutely right. Keep in mind Clint in "Gran Torino", or "Sudden Impact", when you're picking your star. Bats here was older, out of shape, & meaner, much more Golden Age or Rorschachesque than the Silver Age Bats (let alone the JLI Bats). This is a Bats who really would say, "Go ahead. Make my day." & mean it.

Bruce Campbell IS The Joker!

That would be kinda cool. My first thought was more like Eric Roberts (presuming Nicholson is asking for Chase Manhattan & Raimi's firstborn). Campbell, too young? He'd be...35? 36? (Born '58, xWP.)