Batman Returns
Tim Burton's visually wondrous guide to surviving the holidays single
Video Days is Mad About Michelle in the month of April, with ten films starring leading lady Michelle Pfeiffer, born April 29, 1958 in Santa Ana, California and celebrating her 67th birthday this month.
BATMAN RETURNS (1992) is the darkest, most demented and well made Batman feature film of the 20th century and thirty years after its hugely anticipated release, was still the maddest of them all. It takes advantage of a line ruling that Part II of most franchises is permitted to be more ominous in tone, and has a director cashing in the prestige he’d stacked up since delivering Batman (1989) and allowed to explore his curiosities. Corporate sponsors and the studio were not amused, nor were some parents, all the proper groups for visionary filmmakers to upset.
Following the commercial juggernaut of Batman–which not only opened to the highest grossing weekend in film history in June 1989, but was intellectual property primed for a series–Warner Bros. Pictures was high on producing a sequel, and for Tim Burton, by then one of the most successful filmmakers in the world, to return. Hitching their wagon to Burton, Warner Bros. relegated the producers of Batman ‘89–Jon Peters and Peter Guber–to participating in name only, compensating them with executive producer credits. To produce the picture with him, Burton reteamed with Denise Di Novi, producer of his previous film Edward Scissorhands (1990). Burton, a graduate of California Institute of the Arts who’d started his career at Walt Disney Pictures as a storyboard artist and animator, was allergic to plowing up a plot, fixating instead on designing strange characters. Eager to get something in writing that Burton would spark to, screenwriter Sam Hamm, who’d been given the first crack at the screenplay for Batman ‘89, was commissioned.
With the working title Batman 2, Hamm’s draft was set during the Christmas holidays, a device carried through to the finished film, and utilized Penguin and Catwoman as its primary villains, something that Warner Bros. had mandated and would also never change. Little else of Hamm’s work made it on screen. His story was an action/ adventure/ mystery in which a convict named Mr. Boniface, alias Penguin, is released from prison and employs Selina Kyle/ Catwoman to steal five statuettes, their combination to reveal the location of a fortune in gold and silver bullion stolen by the five founders of Gotham City. Aware there’s a new vigilante in town, Catwoman proceeds to machine gun petty criminals to death and attempt to frame Batman for the violence. Vicki Vale is still dating Bruce Wayne in Hamm’s draft, keeping his secret and doing an exposé on a developer seeking to eradicate the poor from real estate he seeks to exploit. A teenage vigilante named Dick Grayson has risen to defend them, though there was no mention of him assuming the alter ego of Robin, the character simply referred to as the Kid. Tim Burton found little in Hamm’s draft to spark his interest in returning to the Batman universe.
In mid-1990, Di Novi brought in screenwriter Daniel Waters, author of her first film as producer, Heathers (1989), for a fresh take. Waters had already met Burton, pitching him a Beetlejuice (1988) sequel that would’ve introduced the bio-exorcist to the First Family, expelling spirits from the White House. The men shared a taste for the dark and unusual, and Di Novi credited Waters for his ability to write women. Over the next year, Waters would generate five drafts of Batman II. Burton, who acknowledged there were parts of Batman ‘89 that he liked, while finding it boring at times, didn’t want to double down on that outcome at greater expense. His marching orders to Waters were to imagine Batman ‘89 didn’t exist and to write a new film. Burton had zero interest in Hamm’s efforts to normalize Bruce Wayne through a relationship with Vicki Vale, so her character was dropped. Waters wasn’t interested in Batman much at all, unless he shared a scene with Catwoman, nor did he find Bruce Wayne all that compelling, unless his character was mingling with Selina Kyle, who became Bruce’s new love interest.
Realizing Hamm’s script was missing a third villain to bring Penguin and Catwoman together, Waters spun Hamm’s real estate developer into an industrialist named Max Shreck. His story swerved into Waters’ wheelhouse: a political and social satire. In his opening scene, a wealthy couple are so horrified by the deformities and murderous tendencies of their infant that they drop his carriage into a creek, where it’s pulled into the sewers of Gotham City and the child is raised by a herd of penguins, escapees from an old zoo. Thirty-three years later, as Gotham celebrates the Christmas season, mousy executive assistant Selina Kyle suffers the indignities of her boss, Max Shreck. She’s next caught in a rampage by the Red Triangle gang, who costume themselves as carnival performers. Bruce Wayne heeds the Bat signal and arrives as Batman to dispatch the gang, rescuing Selina from one of the clowns, but Shreck is captured. He’s taken below the city where the leader of the Red Triangle gang, the deformed child grown to an adult and named Oswald Cobblepot, alias Penguin, offers to keep Shreck’s criminal activities, which he’s recovered in the sewers and trash, a secret if the tycoon facilitates his return to proper society.
Selina, who stumbles onto documentation that Shreck’s power plant project is a scam to steal power from the city, is shoved out a window by her boss. When she comes to, Selina succumbs to her vengeful inner persona of Catwoman, donning leather and embarking on a vigilante spree with a bullwhip. This draws the attention of Bruce Wayne, who romances Selina while investigating efforts by Shreck to install Cobblepot as mayor. Waters–who wrote to please fans of Tim Burton with little regard for how comic book authorities might react–slid in a subtle critique of the merchandising of Batman ‘89, with Batman bristling over his likeness being sold in gift shops, only to be replaced by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when he’s wanted for murder (Burton bristled at social commentary, so this bit was cut). To normalize some of Waters’ more satiric tendencies, Di Novi added Wesley Strick, the screenwriter of Arachnophobia (1990) and Cape Fear (1991), to the payroll before Waters was brought back to polish the script. (The WGA would award screenplay credit to Daniel Waters, story credit to Waters and Sam Hamm, based on characters by Bob Kane).
The character of the Kid changed to a mechanic repairing the Batmobile, and Marlon Wayans got as far as being cast in the part before the character was cut. Danny DeVito, a more obvious casting choice for Penguin than Jack Nicholson had been for Joker in Batman ‘89, was cast as the villain. Annette Bening won the coveted role of Selina Kyle/ Catwoman, but discovering she and Warren Beatty were pregnant, bowed out of the production. In July 1991, Michelle Pfeiffer was announced as Bening’s replacement. Pfeiffer would declare herself to have been a fan of Catwoman going back to the age of eight, when adults and children alike were obsessed by the ridiculously fun Batman TV series and Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt and Lee Meriwether played the villain over three seasons. Pfeiffer explained her love for Catwoman by describing the character as someone who was bad, but allowed viewers to love her in spite of it.
Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/ Batman, Alfred Gough as Alfred and Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon were joined by Christopher Walken as Max Shreck, and in cameos, three actors from Tim Burton’s feature film debut Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985): Paul Reubens and Diane Salinger as Penguin’s parents, and Jan Hooks as a campaign staffer. With a budget that Warner Bros. reported at $55 million, shooting on what was now titled Batman Returns commenced September 1991 in Los Angeles, in Burton’s backyard (Batman ‘89 had been filmed at Pinewood Studios in London). It would occupy as many as eight soundstages on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, with an additional stage on the Universal Studios lot in nearby Universal City utilized to build the Penguin’s lair. Key personnel were plucked from Beetlejuice and/or Edward Scissorhands: director of photography Stefan Czapsky, production designer Bo Welch, art director Tom Duffield, set decorator Cheryl Carasik, makeup artist Ve Neill.
Warner Bros. grew anxious over the film’s commercial appeal. Merchandising was extensive, with McDonald’s, Target, and Ralston Purina among the companies investing in the picture. Opening June 1992 on a platform of 2,644 screens in the U.S., critical response fell into two camps: critics who’d disliked Batman ‘89 loved the new direction, while critics who’d admired Batman ‘89 didn’t. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert split. Siskel enjoyed the film and cited the characters of Penguin and Catwoman as being psychologically compelling, with Danny DeVito’s performance threatening and sad, and Michelle Pfeiffer turning in good light comedy work. Ebert found the picture visually compelling with little to care about. Writing in the New York Times, Janet Maslin credited Tim Burton for resetting the mood of Batman ‘89, which she’d found tedious and sour, predicting the sequel’s costumes, gadgets and art design would live on long after the motives of its characters were forgotten.
Michelle Pfeiffer was universally praised for the verve she brought to her dual role and the actor was eager to reprise the characters. Daniel Waters generated an outline for a spin-off titled Catwoman and completed a draft in 1995. His story transported Selina Kyle to “Oasisburg,” an amalgam of Los Angeles/ Las Vegas/ Phoenix in which she lays low as a casino worker until a trio of supervillains of the screenwriter’s creation require taming from Catwoman. Waters wanted to make a better version of Batman and Batman Returns, big and fun, without Bruce Wayne/ Batman getting in the way. Burton, who’d assigned Cat People (1942) and Kitten With a Whip (1964) to Waters before he started writing, seemed drawn to making a kitschy horror B-movie rather than another big budget superhero film. Warner Bros. wasn’t at all interested in Burton’s vision for Catwoman and the filmmaker expressed no desire to direct theirs. (Waters would recall Pfeiffer recognizing him at an industry event years later and still being incredulous Burton and Waters hadn’t been able to resolve their creative differences).
Tim Burton and Denise Di Novi’s Batman Returns is by and for the right-brained artsy kid in us, and errs on the side of alienating the left-brained analyticals, who most of us have in us as well. It’s not a cheerful experience, but is a visual marvel, and instead of holding our hand, the filmmakers trust we can handle the bizarreness. There are fewer straight characters (neither Robert Wuhl or Billy Dee Williams of Batman ‘89 were asked back), giving its freaks more screen time. Instead of nameless goons for Batman to beat up, the Penguin has an actual gang, with a very amusing circus motif: the Organ Grinder (Vincent Schiavelli), Poodle Lady (Anna Katarina), Thin Clown (Doug Jones). In one improvement over Batman ‘89, when characters are killed, those deaths stick in the psyche much more than they often do in other fantasy films. “Fantasy” is the key word. Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle’s strange relationship is what sets Batman Returns apart. Rather than spend the movie trying to catch or kill each other, these are two single and lonely people during the holidays, their antisocial wariness of others having taken its toll. Bruce keeps meeting women who want him to open up, while men keep putting their hands on Selina in ways she doesn’t consent to. Rather than attend therapy, they don costumes and work their issues out by letting their alter-egos box it out. That’s compelling.
The chief reason to see Batman Returns is everything tangentially related to Michelle Pfeiffer. Hers is the most thrilling portrayal of Selina Kyle to come along in sixty years, with Halle Berry, Anne Hathaway and Zoë Kravitz taking their turns in 2004, 2012 and 2022 films. Rather than the action villain of 1960s television or Hamm’s script, this version of the vigilante undergoes a transformation that’s both playful and complex, a transition none of the other villains in this franchise have been required to do credibly. Daniel Waters supplies Catwoman with a bag full of frisky dialogue (“Life’s a bitch. Now so am I.”) delivered by Pfeiffer with otherworldly command. She gives 100% physical commitment to the role, not only performing hand-to-hand combat in heels and snapping a bullwhip with precision, but at one moment, in what most will assume was a trick, lets a parakeet fly out of her mouth (the one she stuffs in her mouth a prop, the freed one real). Like a few of Tim Burton’s films–namely Mars Attacks (1996) and Sleepy Hollow (1999)–Batman Returns excels in segments lasting between three and five minutes, struggling to find enough units to sustain a two-hour film or thread a cohesive narrative. Batman Returns–with Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, story by Burton, produced by Burton & Di Novi) ) and Ed Wood (1994) represents the filmmaker at his peak.
Video rental category: Fantasy
Special interest: Vigilante Justice
You’re right, Joe, visually stunning! So much so that I really don’t notice character development, or cohesive plot line… Which I think might harken back to reading the actual comic books… Each frame being its own individual picture with limited dialogue… Love Tim Burton, Sleepy Hollow so much fun! Anyway, as always, great job with the development backstory and analysis. Peace! CPZ.