Batman 5?

To many of us who are fans of the Batman movies we can all remember the shoddy job that Joel Schumacher did on Batman and Robin, with critics during the time it was released tearing the movie apart. Some of us who are fans may not know that there was a planned 5th movie that was supposed to be made in the Batman franchise. As a direct result of the flop that was Batman and Robin, the film was never...

So, lets say that Batman and Robin, due to some major changes, is at least moderately successful with critics. Would this set the stage for Batman Triumphant? Also, if Batman Triumphant is released, how does it effect the live action series of Batman movies? Do the Nolan films ever get made?
Thoughts?
 
The Christ Nolan Batrfilms probably don't get made, at least not right away. Batman Triuphant supposedly would have redeemed Batman and Nipple Suit.
 
Last edited:
The problem with making "Batman and Robin" not suck seems to me to be hard, given that it feels like asking "what if this person acted a way they wouldn't act". It was just a perfect storm. Schumacher didn't take it seriously, telling the actor's it was just a comic book movie and they shouldn't take it too seriously. The studio made it into one giant toy commercial, making it a key focus of the film to sell merchandise and toys, and having designs be preapproved by a toy company first. The result was a mess, where Schumacher made a 60s Batman film without any heart, and any heart was curbed by the studio having it be a shallow corporate venture to push t-shirts and action figures and Schumacher going along with that happily. The result of this was that the super hero film died off until X-Men. The good thing, though, was that that failure showed that the studios needed to have their shit together and not treat comic books like silly kids stuff, which has allowed the boom in superhero films we've seen in this era.

I don't know how you avoid Batman and Robin, though. The seeds were planted with Batman Forever, which was not anywhere near as bad (and was a VHS favorite of mine as a kid), but which you can see where everything bad in Batman and Robin started. Schumacher stinks as a Batman director, and the studio was just corporately moronic in how they treated the franchise post-Burton until the crash and the Nolan films came out.
 
I think Batman and Robin bombing was a good thing. Notice how studios treat movie adaptions of comic books and video games with a lot more seriousness than ever before. I mean, sure a lot of video game adaptations are still not that great (Resident Evil has had surprisingly good longevity), but try comparing it to early 90s films like Street Fighter.
 

The

Banned
If "Batman and Robin" is positively received by critics, and "Batman Triumphant" is successful, the Nolan films still get made, but they're held off on for a while as they milk this gen's franchise films dry.

Problem is, though, as some guy above me said, how do you make "Batman and Robin" not suck? Just get a new crew altogether?
 
The good thing, though, was that that failure showed that the studios needed to have their shit together and not treat comic books like silly kids stuff, which has allowed the boom in superhero films we've seen in this era.

There have been some misfires, like Green Lantern and Daredevil, but overall that lesson has resulted in slew of solid (X-Men) to flat out brilliant (The Dark Knight) comic book films and has also resulted in Marvel attempting to put its entire universe on screen in the form of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
I don't know how you avoid Batman and Robin, though. The seeds were planted with Batman Forever, which was not anywhere near as bad (and was a VHS favorite of mine as a kid), but which you can see where everything bad in Batman and Robin started. Schumacher stinks as a Batman director, and the studio was just corporately moronic in how they treated the franchise post-Burton until the crash and the Nolan films came out.

Well, I think the first step would be putting somebody else the director's chair, but Warner Bros and DC don't seem to have the same sense of vision as Marvel and Paramount. The DC movies have certainly gotten better in terms of story quality and production values, but I would think that Warner Bros' own experience with Harry Potter, and the success of the Marvel films would have given them ideas about how to how to package their comic book films. Hell, evev Fox is now trying to forge the X-men films into a single coherent universe.
 
Schumacher stinks as a Batman director, and the studio was just corporately moronic in how they treated the franchise post-Burton until the crash and the Nolan films came out.

I wonder if there is anyway that Schumacher never directs Batman Forever, thereby separating him from the Batman series algtogether... maybe the parental groups that reject Batman Returns IOTL never convince Warner Brothers to get rid of Tim Burton, thus butterflying away Batman Forever and Batman on Ice.
 
So, lets say that Batman and Robin, due to some major changes, is at least moderately successful with critics. Would this set the stage for Batman Triumphant? Also, if Batman Triumphant is released, how does it effect the live action series of Batman movies? Do the Nolan films ever get made?
No chance. Batman Begins was made at the end of a very very long process of various Batman projects being proposed and rejected, and its final shape was a direct result of how awful Batman & Robin was. Batman Triumphant would send the film series off in a completely different direction.

In any case, I don't think there's any way to make Batman & Robin and not have it be shallow and terrible. Batman & Robin is inherently shallow and terrible. Once Batman Forever was made and Warner Brothers demanded "Do that again, but more so this time!" its path was set. The only thing you can do is limit the damage -- critics will never like it, but the public will see it if it's fun enough.

The Batman Triumphant script hasn't been released, but apparently its tone is somewhere between Batman Forever and the original 1989 Batman film. So it's entirely possible that Batman Triumphant would cause the series to rebound. It becomes the equivalent of The Undiscovered Country, with Batman & Robin being The Final Frontier.

So that's five movies. Warner Bros may push for a sixth, but Akiva Goldsman had already refused to return for Batman Triumphant, so Schumacher might not return to direct yet another sequel. Clooney and O'Donnell might not want to come back either. In that case, they may decide to make a clean break of it and make a live-action Batman Beyond movie. (In OTL Warner Bros had a choice between making adaptations of Batman Beyond or Batman: Year One, and they picked Year One; this has to have been motivated by Batman & Robin's failure, so in the ATL they may go for Beyond instead -- push it into the future rather than starting over.)

I wonder if there is anyway that Schumacher never directs Batman Forever, thereby separating him from the Batman series algtogether... maybe the parental groups that reject Batman Returns IOTL never convince Warner Brothers to get rid of Tim Burton, thus butterflying away Batman Forever and Batman on Ice.
Thing is, Batman Returns was never not going to freak out parental groups and thus freak out Warner Bros. Again, Batman Forever was a natural consequence of Batman Returns -- even if it wasn't Schumacher who got hired it'd be someone else who'd make a movie that's merely bad in a slightly different way. If you want to make a good third Batman movie, then you have to prevent Batman Returns from getting made. And that means getting rid of Burton earlier.
 
Top