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CASTING YOUR IDEAL BATMAN MOVIE.
With the recent announcement from Warner Bros
Pictures about the casting of Christian Bale it seems that the long wait is over and
another Batman movie is on the horizon. Hopefully when we sit down in the darkened movie
theater in the summer of 2005 we will have something to cheer.
Whenever the Batman movies get mentioned,
and they’ve been mentioned a lot in recent days on various news sites, I get asked
the inevitable questions. Who’s your favorite Batman ? Which was your favorite Batman
movie?
People asking the first question usually
mean, “Who is your favorite Batman actor from the recent 4 movies?” – And
that one I can answer quickly, and it’s an answer that surprises most people. –
George Clooney.
OK I hated the movie BATMAN & ROBIN with
a passion – in fact I refuse to watch it anymore. But despite the circumstances he
worked under, I still think Clooney delivered the best balanced performance and understood
both Bruce Wayne and The Batman. I also have a lot of admiration for the way he stood up
and apologized for “killing the franchise”
when those actually responsible stayed quiet.
So that’s my favorite Batman, so which
is my favorite movie? I usually answer BATMAN RETURNS, but if truth be told, I can find
fault with all four of them.
So how would I have made them better?.
Let’s pretend that you are the sole person responsible for the Batman franchise, sort
of like the George Lucas of the Batman universe. (How about if Warner Bros actually had a
person with that responsibility? – But that’s a subject for another column.).
It’s 1989 and over the next few years
you have control over the casting and basic plot of the Batman movie franchise – so
what would you have done differently?
But as with any good game, there’s a
catch – you have to keep the movie titles and you must use the same pool of actors
who actually appeared in the movies, (although you can recast them and move them around).
OK, so given the cast of characters and
actors used across the 4 Batman movies between 1989 and 1997, here's how I would have done
them.
Batman / Bruce Wayne - George Clooney in all
four movies.
Tim Burton directing all four.
1. BATMAN - Left pretty
much as is, except I'd have cast Jim Carrey as The Joker and had Tommy Lee Jones play
Harvey Dent.
2. BATMAN RETURNS - Keep
Michelle Phiffer's Catwoman and Danny DeVito's Penguin (but tone down the grosser aspects)
ditch the Max Schreck character. Play up the parallels between Wayne and Cobblepot a bit
more. And had a Harvey Dent sub-plot with Tommy Lee Jones leading into...
3 - BATMAN FOREVER - No
Robin ! No Riddler - just a classic tale focused on the tragedy of Two-Face (Tommy Lee
Jones).
4 - BATMAN & ROBIN –
Given the title there would be no choice but to introduce a younger "Tim Drake"
attitude Robin (but with the classic Grayson origin) - no costumed villains - but Batman
as a detective tracking down Boss Zucco played by Jack Nicholson. (Based on the great
two-parter that they used in the Animated series).
So that’s my ideal version of the
Batman franchise. What’s yours?
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