Batmans first real step into movie theatres came in 1989, with director Tim Burton's Batman starring Michael Keaton. Burton's film was a huge success; not only was it the top-grossing film of the year, but at the time was the fifth highest-grossing film in history. The film spawned three sequels: Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997), the last two of which were directed by Joel Schumacher instead of Burton, and replaced Keaton with Val Kilmer and George Clooney, respectively. In 1992 Batman returned to television in Batman: The Animated Series which was produced by Warner Bros. and was broadcast on the Fox television network until 1997, when it moved to The WB Television Network and was reworked into The New Batman Adventures. The producers of Batman: The Animated Series would go to work on the animated feature film release Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993), as well as the futuristic Batman Beyond and Justice League series. Like Batman: The Animated Series, these productions starred Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne. In 2004, a new animated series titled The Batman made its debut with Rino Romano as the title character. In 2005 Christopher Nolan directed Batman Begins, a reboot of the film franchise starring Christian Bale as Batman. A sequel to Nolan's film, The Dark Knight, is due for release in July 2008.
The Dark Knight Trivia
For the film's opening sequence, a 200-foot fireball was filmed at the Battersea Power Station in London. The fireball created calls from panic-stricken local residents, who assumed a terrorist attack was on the out-of-use Station.
