Batman Returns is a 1992 superhero film based on the Batman character created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane. Tim Burton directed the film, which has Michael Keaton reprising the role of Batman, as well as Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer and Christopher Walken. The film's plot primarily concerns Bruce Wayne struggling to provide peace in Gotham City after the appearance of a mysterious "Penguin-like man" and the sudden birth of Selina Kyle into Catwoman. In his wake Bruce romances with Selina, both as Bruce Wayne and Batman while trying to prove Penguin to be a criminal towards the citizens of Gotham.
Burton originally did not want to return for a second installment due to his mixed emotions from the original film. After being impressed with a script by Daniel Waters, he thought otherwise. Wesley Strick would later be brought on for an uncredited rewrite, deleting characterizations of Robin and Harvey Dent. The film was entirely shot at Warner Brothers studios in Burbank, California (the first film was shot at Pinewood Studios in England), with Danny Elfman returning to compose the film score, citing it as a stressful experience, but still overly positive. Batman Returns was both a commercial and critical success, but did spawn controversies (being seen as "too dark" for younger children). Comic book veterans would express mixed thoughts and reviews. The film would also receive nominations at the Academy Awards, MTV Movie Awards and the Razzie Awards.
Cast / Production / Music / Reaction
Cast
Keaton was not signed for a second installment and only returned after a significant raise in his salary. DeVito was the first and only choice for the Penguin, and writer Daniel Waters claimed he wrote the character with DeVito in mind. According to producer Denise Di Novi, every single actress in Hollywood between the ages of 25 and 42 desperately wanted the role of Catwoman. Among them included Raquel Welch, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Lena Olin, Ellen Barkin, Cher, Bridget Fonda and Susan Sarandon. Annette Bening was originally cast in the role after Burton was impressed with her performance in The Grifters. She would eventually drop out during pre-production upon finding out she was pregnant with Warren Beatty's child. Burton felt that Pfeiffer "was the one and only other obvious choice for the role." However, Sean Young, who was originally cast as Vicki Vale in the first film before she became injured, believed the role should have gone to her. She often visited the Warner Brothers offices and studio often dressed up in a homemade costume demanding an audition. She then visited The Joan Rivers Show dressed in the outfit stating that the situation was "unfair Hollywood." Pfeiffer joined the film with a signing fee of $3 million ($2 million more than Bening's original salary), and also taking a percentage of the box office gross, while taking kickboxing lessons.
Production
"I think I probably got a little carried away. We tried to give The Penguin a foundation and a psychological profile. I liked the fact that some people couldn't decide whether or not Catwoman was bad. She never was bad. When they were bad on the TV series they were never really bad. That's the thing, I never saw any of them as bad, and I never believe it when they say people are bad."
— Tim Burton on the villains of Batman Returns
Although a sequel was an obvious move, Tim Burton had not been signed up in advance and after the release of hugely successful Batman (1989), Burton publicly described a second installment as "a most dumbfounded idea." On the first film, Burton quoted, "There's parts I liked, but it was a little boring at times. Often with sequels, they're like the same movie except everything gets jacked up a little. I didn't feel I could do that; I wanted to treat this like it was another Batman movie altogether." The first Batman film cost a total of $35,000,000 to make. "Batman Returns" cost more than twice that, ending up costing $80,000,000.
Sam Hamm, who wrote the first film, wrote a first draft that had the Penguin and Catwoman going after hidden treasure. Hamm also originally had Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face in his drafts of the script. Waters claimed he "flirted with it," although it was only to be a very small subplot. Dent was deleted as Burton didn't want the film to have connections with the previous Batman film. Burton briefly spoke of the situation as well, thinking of the idea to be interesting of using Williams as Two-Face for a possible third Batman installment before giving the directing reins to Joel Schumacher.
Hamm's draft was considered disappointing, so Burton brought in Daniel Waters. Burton was impressed with his work on Heathers, and originally brought him in for writing a sequel to Beetlejuice. A year later, however, Burton felt him to be perfect as Hamm's replacement. It was at this time that Warner Brothers decided to give Burton full creative control. Burton was excited with Waters' new pitch that had an evil mogul (Max Shreck, whose name is a reference to the actor of the same name, who portrayed Count Orlok in Nosferatu) backing a bid for the Mayor's office by The Penguin. Waters claimed that Hamm wrote a "old-fashioned, almost like a Hardy Boys action adventure". On Hamm's original characterization of Catwoman, Waters stated that "[he] went back to the comic book and the way comic books in general treat women, like a fetish[y] sexual fantasy." Waters felt that he needed to see the film through her point of view. He reinvented her as a secretary, feeling that she should "start off just at the lowest point in society".
The studio desperately wanted Robin to appear in the film. He was originally supposed to appear in the original film, though Burton and Hamm convinced Warner Brothers otherwise. Waters found writing the character very hard, because "Tim and I personally hate him, he's just the most worthless character in the world, especially with Tim's conception of Batman as the loner of loners." Waters had visioned Robin as the leader of a street gang, though before he was written as an African American, to which he forms a "hard-edged" relationship with Batman. Waters and Burton argued that there were too many characters in the script and then visioned another version of the character. He was then written as an intelligent African-American working in an autoshop garage. He was to supposedly fix the Batmobile after Penguin wrecks it. Waters quoted that he costume was to be "an old-fashioned garage mechanic uniform and it just has an 'R' on it." There was also to be a scene where he drives the Batmobile in the same manner he does in Batman Forever, which Waters feels, "they [the writers of Batman Forever] ripped me off! They didn't even give me free popcorn for that!" Marlon Wayans was cast in the role and was even paid with a contract of two films. He was initially cast in the role for Batman Forever, however Wayans quoted, "They decided they wanted somebody white." Wayans was paid for both films without having to do any acting.
Wesley Strick was solely brought in to come up with a solution with "Penguin's lack of a master plan". The writer claimed he was presented with "the usual boring ideas to do with warming the city, or freezing the city" (the latter ended up in Batman & Robin). Strick pitched an alternative approach, inspired by the Moses parallels of Walter's prologue, in which the infant Oswald Cobblepot is bundled in a basket and thrown in the river where he floats helplessly until he's saved (and subsequently raised) by Gotham's sewer denizens. He came up with Penguin's "master plan" to kill the firstborn sons of Gotham City. Both the studio and Burton were impressed with the idea, though Strick claims the toy manufacturers were worried. Strick went uncredited for his work. Strick also deleted the idea of Schreck turning out to be the Penguin's brother.
Although Warner Brothers had, at great expense, kept Anton Furst's sets of Gotham City in Batman at Pinewood Studios, Burton felt the sequel should have a completely different production design and instead went to the studio's lot in Burbank. He said, "They could have brought somebody else in for the sequel, and had the same sets, and shot in London, but I couldn't do that because I'd have lost interest. I wanted to treat it like it was another movie altogether, there's no point in doing the exact same thing again." Furst, the production designer of the first film, was offered to once again take the opportunity, though was forced to decline due to "contractual reasons". Burton hired Bo Welch, whom he previously worked with on Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. Furst committed suicide three months after filming began in September 1991.
Construction began in early 1991 at two of Hollywood's largest sound-stages, Stage 16 at Warner Brothers and Stage 12 at Universal Pictures. Eight other buildings were used on the Warner Brothers lot, and when filming finished at least fifty percent of the studio's outlets were occupied by the filming of Batman Returns. Stage 16 was used primarily for "Gotham Plaza," which was based on New York's Rockefeller Centre. The set was covered with foam and polyester fabric stuffing to stimulate snowdrifts. Universal's Stage 12 housed the Penguin's underground lair, an enormous tank filled with half-a-million gallons of water and a simulated ice floe island. To create Penguin's bird army a combination of techniques were utilized including men in suits, computer-generated imagery, robotic creatures and real life penguins.
The sets were also kept frozen to simulate the winter time period of the film and for the pleasure of the penguins at stage 12. Filming was to remain very secretive. Picture ID cards were issued to everyone on set, with a code name, "Dictel" (short, Burton insisted, for "Dictatorial"), being stamped on sensitive documents. Art department personnel were advised to keep their office curtains closed at all times and no visitors were allowed near the sets, with even Kevin Costner being refused. Everyone involved was required to sign a document guaranteeing that they would not specifically hold interviews with news sources. About midway through filming, however, a few test shots of DeVito in costume found their way into an American entertainment magazine. Warner Brothers hired a group of private investigators to track down the source, though the ploy ultimately failed.
Music
Danny Elfman was calm on writing the film score for a sequel, as he "didn't have to prove himself", unlike his work for the first film, where he had to impress producer Jon Peters. Elfman claims he would not have been interested if he were "to basically perform the same notes from the original film", and was excited for the idea that Burton wanted to make a completely different film. Elfman compared scoring the music with a combination of, "a usual action film score, mixed with a clashing of an opera, and finally adding the element of silent film-like feel," citing the experience as his hardest work he has ever done in his music career. In addition he compared the action sequences to that of "composing a cartoon in the 1940s". Despite the stress and the work level, Elfman also found it fun and exhilarating, claiming he took advantage of the opportunity to write an additional 20 minutes of music compared with Batman and composed two new themes for the Penguin and Catwoman. In total, Elfman wrote 95 minutes of music for the film, which is twice the amount of the usual guideline.
Reaction
Batman Returns opened in the United States on June 19, 1992 and surpassed its predecessor's record for the most successful three-day opening in history, with receipts totaling $47.7 million; it would eventually gross $267 million worldwide, $144 million less than the original. Even though the film was considered by many to be "too dark," Burton thinks otherwise, feeling that Batman was far darker than Batman Returns. To this day, he favors Batman Returns between the two.
Batman Returns is currently the fourth highest grossing Batman film to date, and was also the third highest grossing film of 1992 (behind Aladdin and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York). Based on 42 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, Batman Returns received an average 81% overall approval rating; the film received a 57% with the seven critics in Rotten Tomatoes' "Cream of the Crop."
Those who supported the film were largely enthusiastic. Phillip Thomas of Empire was highly effecting stating, "Burton continues to capture the essence of the Batman legend and more importantly his audiences imagination." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone supported the main themes that included the story, characters, and visual citing that "Burton uses the summer's most explosively entertaining movie to lead us back into the liberating darkness of dreams." Todd McCarthy of Variety went further, feeling "Where Burton's ideas end and those of his collaborators begin is impossible to know, but result is a seamless, utterly consistent universe full of nasty notions about societal deterioration, greed and other base impulses."
Batman Returns, however, was met with negative feedback as well, due to its controversial elements. Roger Ebert commented that it was "odd and sad, but not exhilarating", feeling that it "didn't spring into the free world." Rita Kempley of the Washington Post stated, "like a hyperactive 11-year-old, the director [Burton] seems both uncomfortable with adult emotions and unable to focus on the overall portrait." Comic book veteran Matt Wagner felt it was strong on atmosphere but felt Burton was more interested on the villains and that he was a terrible action director. He openly stated, "Batman Returns is often credited as being a better film [than Batman] but I fucking hated how it made Batman little more than just another costumed creep, little better than the villains he’s pursuing."
Paul Dini was impressed with the characterization of Bruce Wayne, while other comic book enthusiasts thought otherwise. One criticism was that the script lacked any character development for Batman, and instead focused on the villains. In response to this, writer Daniel Waters claimed he originally had an excessive amount of screen time and dialogue for Michael Keaton, though claimed it was personally Keaton's idea to delete objectionable material. Having Batman killing criminals also caused some controversy among comic book fans; they argued that in the comics Batman refrains from killing, fearing he may himself become a criminal. Waters stated "you can't drop bad guys on a spider-web in front of city hall (when referring to Spider-Man)."
Bruce Timm was impressed with Michelle Pfeiffer's performance while Alex Ross was embarrassed to have liked Christopher Walken in a role that was created specifically for the film. Critics of Tim Burton's work have constantly pointed to what they term his inability to tell a coherent story, and with Batman Returns, he was again accused of sacrificing the narrative for the sake of the visuals, or simply style over substance. In defense Burton stated, "it's just how my brain works."
Batman Returns was nominated for two Academy Awards, although it won neither. It lost "Best Visual Effects" to Death Becomes Her and "Best Makeup" to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Pfeiffer was nominated for "Most Desirable Female" at the MTV Movie Awards, but lost to Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Both Keaton and Pfeiffer were nominated for "Best Kiss" but lost out to Marisa Tomei and Christian Slater in Untamed Heart. Danny DeVito would be nominated for "Best Villain" though he ended up losing to Jennifer Jason Leigh in Single White Female. DeVito was once again nominated for "Worst Supporting Actor" in the Razzie Awards before losing to Tom Selleck in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.
