The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 20: The Smark Avengers Talk 90s Batman Films

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

What does Oingo Boingo, hideous penguin boys, pulled McDonalds sponsorships, Bono, the LA Lakers, Danny Devito's testicles, battery acid, toy commercials, and Danny "fucking" Dyer all have in common? An explanation for why Corey turned out the way he did! Join the Smark Avengers as Corey, Dylan, and Jon discuss the Batman movies that took the world by storm from its beginnings with 1989's Batman to it's cold, bitter end with 1997's Batman & Robin!

It is. Yeah, 15. It's a chilly place. Silsius. Yeah. That's still a little warm for me. I could go a little bit colder than that. Yeah.

In the winter, it'll get very cold. Nice. Wow. That was a very adult conversation we just had about weather. Would you like me to think of some thick jokes instead? Well, I was just going to say that we'll go from adult conversations about weather, and we'll go back to childish conversations about superhero movies. Wacky Batman?

Yeah. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Smart Avengers. My name is Corey and with me as always is John and Dylan. Actually, this is the return of John. Hi, John. How are you? Hi. I am sick as a dog. Did you get, did Germany make you sick? No, I was sick beforehand and then I think Germany probably made it worse. But it's okay. I'm going to music festival next week. So,

That will surely make me way better. Who are you going to go see? I'm going to Glastonbury. Who's headliner? Uh, do someone. I think it's this cold play and Jua Leapur and someone who's name. I don't know how you pronounce. I think it's Sizer or Sizer or Szaa.

That's a Pokemon. that's what funny when is that because i'm going to see james addiction next week oh man i wish i was going to see james addiction you can come along man it's on friday just come on over dublin you get the flight you get the flight to dublin and then it's real it's like you get the bus down from the airport to the city center i need to stop you real quick you just knows you know sold shania twain being there oh yeah shenaii at wain's that's pretty big name. Somebody

does his name accounts pronounce Shanae Shinnish Nih I don't know who is it is you and he asked you the headlines man.

She's listed as one of the headliners. Yeah, the top of the billing is like Duleipa, Colplay,

SZA and Shania Twain. Wow, she's the they always do a legend spot on the Sunday.

Yeah, she's in the legend spot, yeah. I mean, tickets to Glassonbury. I think it was about 350 quid, maybe a bit more.

E, aye, aye, aye. It used to be, I first started going in 2005. It used to be half that price, probably. Yeah, but not everybody goes there because it's a cool hip thing you do. Yeah, that's the thing. That's $442 American dollars. Holy shit.

That's a good bit. It used to be pretty, not easy, but like you could still get tickets quite late in the day. Whereas now, like, as soon as they go on sale, on the first Sunday of October, they sell out in about, I don't know, 30 minutes or so. Yeah.

And that's without any acts being announced or anything. Like, we didn't find out in the line up until basically a month ago. Yeah, my friend's always trying to give me to go. And I'm like, dude, first of all, there's no fucking way I would go to it. It's too big. Like, I just, I would have a, such. a bad time. There's too many people there's, but second of all, I don't want to pay

$300 for something where I don't even know he's playing. Like, what if I pay $300,000 for, like, just a bunch of shit I don't want to go see? You know, like, I would pay to go see a music festival if it's people I really want to go see. Like, I want to go see Fyth and Moore at some point. Like, Fifth or more, like, on my

bucket list, the guys I want to see. But they only play, like, festivals now. They don't do a tour. If they come to the UK, they only do, like, Glastonbury or download or Rating, stuff like that big festivals. I'm like, do I want to pay 300 points to see a bunch of shitty bonds I don't care about on Fifth and Moore?

I just want to see Fiatna more. Let them do like a fucking one-off gig in Dublin or something so I can go see him and be happy. Anyway, we're talking about Batman. So we're talking about Batman movies today. I called this a 90s Batman thing, but then Dylan wanted to be pedantic and bring up the fact that the first Batman movie by Tim Burton was 1989. I don't think that's pedantic.

I think that that's numerically accurate. That is pedantic. That's correct, is what it is. So regardless, we'll call this Batman movies 1989 and 1997. Thank you. Does that sound good? It's not really, but we'll go with it. It doesn't roll off the tongue, does it?

Well, none of our titles really do, do they? So this is sort of a return to form in a sense for us because we've done a couple of these episodes where we just focus on a particular chunk of superhero movies. So we've already covered the X-Men movies. We covered the Spider-Man movies, the MCU stuff. We've talked about some of the DC-E-U stuff. So this is kind of that period of time in the 90s

where there really wasn't superhero movies except for Batman, which kind of came about in 1989. So we're going to hit Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and then Batman and Robin. so sort of the benefit of Batman being owned by Warner Brothers is that getting a movie made

could be really fucking simple for them so real quick what's everybody's experience with these Batman movies I like three out of four of them I think that's pretty common Yeah great

So that's The first two especially are really really good Yes well I think didn't we established our favorite Batman is Michael Keaton? Yes. Yeah, I think two out of three of us. That was like, so if you, so if you want to know, like, hear that episode, that was from

volume two of the Smart Avengers, which was over a year or so ago. I think it's actually over a year ago where we broke down the individual actors who played Spider-Man or not Spider-Man Batman, dating back to like the 1930 serials and then moving all the way to the Robert Pattinson, the Batman. So we did touch on Michael Key. Keaton and Val Kilmer and George Clooney there. So that being said, I don't think we'll speak too much about that because we don't want to like retread territory like I did when I

repeated the same gender fluid joke for Hydro Man. But acted surprised. Like I just thought of it a second time again. So yeah, that was I did keep that in. That was my favorite bit. We were talking about Hydromen and whether I don't remember the specifics of it. But Corey audibly went, because he thought of a joke.

And then said the joke with such a cleanest voice. And then immediately after doing the joke, you could hear the jackson where he was like, oh, I've done this already. It was such a beautiful like 20 seconds. You know what do you mean? It was beautiful. So anyway, we're going back to the 80s and 90s. We're going to talk a bit about sort of the Tim Burton influence.

and the themes and the moods that were captured there, the transition to the Joel Schumacher, and then ultimately kind of end up with like, where did it go wrong? Which I will tell you is into that Joel Schumacher era. So what is going on with this? So this came about like it says, it was 1986.

Tim Burton got hired to direct this movie, this version of Batman. This came about with, it looks like Steve Englehart and Julie Hickson, brought on to write the film treatments before Samaheim wrote the first screenplay Batman was not greenlit until after the success of 1988's Beetlejuice though so this was like already like written and prepared but they didn't pull the trigger until Beagle Juice was a big hit in 1988 the tone and theme of the movies are going to be were influenced more by Alan

Moore and Brian Ballard's The Killing Joke and Frank Miller's The Dark Night Returns and the film primarily adapts and then diverges from the Red Hood origin story for the Joker, which involves a gangster getting dropped into a vat of chemicals and being transformed to a psychotic individual. Apparently also Bob Kane was brought in as a consultant for the film. Very famously, Bob Kane at this time was considered the sole creator of Batman, completely ignoring Bill Finger's contributions, which, again, if you've ever seen like the Bob Kane, idea for what Batman was, you will appreciate Bill Finger's contributions way more. Basically, I think his version of Batman was just a guy wearing a suit, like, just like a

business suit with like wings sticking out the back. Yeah. Yeah. So the look came about because of Bill Finger. So anyway, there was a, you know, kind of a traditionally, Michael Keaton's casting was considered very controversial because he was considered a comedy actor. And I'm not, if you're familiar with a lot of Michael Keaton's works. I mean, what we've got, I always think a night shift. And that's like such a weird cut to pull from like Michael Keaton's comedy is fucking night shift. Especially when you just mentioned Beatlejays. Exactly, right? My first thought went night shift. I don't know why. But I was to think of his like joy and like excitement when he pitches the idea of edible garbage. Um, but so this is, um, so real quick,

we'll kind of dive into the plot. As he said, it's the origin of the red hood. Batman is an individual who's still very new to Gotham. In your encounters the Jack Napier characters played by Jack Nicholson. We have Commissioner Gordon. We have Alfred. There's a scene where to a print song, they completely deface a museum. It's fun all around. Classic bit.

Classic bit. Who doesn't love that scene? I think about every time I go to a museum and then that sort of the, inner thoughts tell you like yes smear pain on that picture i think about it every time i hear a prince song it's a good song uh but yeah so the main actors of course here like i said mentioned or we have jack nicholson as the joker michael keaton is batman kim basinger as vicky vale who is a reporter for the gotham newspaper and the primary love interest we've also got some smaller bit roles like Michael Goff as Alfred Pennyworth,

and he returns for all four movies as Alfred. Billy D. Williams as Harvey Dent. And really, that's it when it comes to larger name actors, for the most part. I mean, shout up to Pat Hinkle as well. He was Commissioner Gordon in all four movies. Yeah, but it was such a small role. It's so funny, like, when you consider the importance of the Commissioner Gordon role and how little he had to do in those four movies.

Especially if you compare it against like Gary Oldman's version from the Christopher Nolan movies or even the more recent the Batman and like where he's more of an active partnership with Batman. So it is weird to think like how small a role the Commissioner Gordon character is. But yeah, no. Tim Burton has a very unique idea of what Batman looks like and what the world is. of Gotham is. I think we touched a bit on this, but Gotham really has

a character as like a city in this movie. Hell yeah. The Gothic architecture makes it pop big time. Yeah, it really stands out. You know, visually it looks great. It's one thing I do remember about those two

Tim Burton films is the almost like the atmosphere. within the city itself. It had a style, much like a lot of Tim Burton films. It had a style that I think some of the other Batman films after that

didn't quite kneel. Identity, I guess, you know. Yeah. Especially as things started to get a bit more neon as the series went on. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's, and we'll get into the Joel Schumacher

influences and where those came from. But it is like if you watch it, it is such a, so the Tim Burton's style has been, I mean, the man's been directing films now for like 40 years. So his style is very well known and in fact overplayed at times because of it. Like it's almost a parody of itself. But like you could put this movie on and without knowing anything about it, you could tell this is a Tim Burton movie. Like just the way the it shot, the looks, the designs of the city and everything. It's a very tonal. down and reserve Tim Burton, but you can like still see it.

Yeah, and it's sort of wild that he was even offered the job in the first place because basically before he got the job, the only movie he directed was the Peewee's big adventure. Like, and then

obviously Beat Your Juice came afterwards after he'd already started production on Batman, but yeah, it's like it feels like a pretty big swing for Warner Brothers to take on a guy who was largely untested and who obviously has this sort of not exactly mainstream vision as well like all of his especially his early movies like Edward Cizor Hands and sleepy hollow and stuff like that like they all have such a

distinctly dark and like gothic visual aesthetic to him which Yeah, I think that's Like they kind of accidentally Stumbled into the good recipe for Batman though Because a good thing about Batman is People forget when they think about Batman on In media

Is because of the campy 60 show They think Batman's all like Funny games and screwing around and stuff Which the old comics were But then as they got further on The comics became very dark And really like serious And you know

Tim Burton's the perfect guy to inject that kind of darkness into that film. Not a whole lot of other directors would have had that kind of foresight. And whether he did that, whether they cast him like that on purpose or not, I don't know. But like, in hindsight, it's really, really good casting to get Tim Burton there. Because like I said, he does have that, he already has that style of this weird, quirky darkness. And Batman's a quirky character. but that always has a darker sight

and you know as strange as it might have seemed it actually is like a perfect match so to kind of go into that if we're going to look you mentioned like what Batman was like in the past so some of the very first Batman appearances were really dark

like Joker is one of the very first if not very first villain Batman encounter back in the 30s and he was straight up a murderer and what kind of changed that was like, of course, the comics code, which, you know, basically people thought that comics were corrupting the youth. So they created this code of authority where a lot of very stringent rules were put on to the content of the books, which is where you got things like the silly silver age where things got really sci-fi and goofy.

And there was a maturing process that had you happen with Batman going through like the bronze era in the 70s and then working as we into the 80s where you did get. get like Dark Night Returns and killing joke and and all of the really darker stuff that like the Frank Miller's and Graham Morrison and Alan Moore brought to Batman of that period of time. So that's originally like that's what drew Tim Burton into doing this. Tim Burton is not a comic book fan. Doesn't care for him at all. So like what why he took the Batman job is he saw Dark Night Returns and liked a lot of the imagery. So like Frank Miller is kind of responsible for how this movie turned out, which is interesting to say, I'm not a big Frank Miller person, but you know, you can, if you know that going in, you can kind of see that, you can see that influence of how dark everything is. Like, Gotham is a dark city.

Like even during the day, it's fucking overcast. You know, there ain't no sunny days in Gotham. Yes. It's a very, like, dowery kind of place. like mentally and structurally. You know what I mean? It always seems like there's a cloud over it. So we talked a good bit about Michael Keaton's casting

and how that raised a big stink amongst comic book fans because at that point Michael Keaton was more known for Mr. Mom and Night Shift in other movies of that ilk. So he's more of a comedy actor. Yeah, just focus on the two important ones. Yeah, I'm going to keep pushing Night Shift in there. You should watch it. Anyway,

John, have you seen night shift? Yeah, have you seen John? Yeah, John, what's your movie count at? And is night shift in there? So I haven't watched a lot of movies in the last week, so I'm still on 369. Still overshot it. Fuck.

We were taking guesses on how many movies you would have seen by the time you return. I had 394. Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah. That was ambitious. I think I said 17. You said 18.

So if we're doing like the prices, right rules of like closest without going over Dylan 1. Oh, sweet. So, yeah, worknight shift out of that and let us know what you think of it. So anyway, of course, you know, originally the ideas were Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner, Charlie Sheen, Tom Selleck, Bill Murray, Harrison Ford, Dennis Quaid. Apparently Pierce Brosnan was also considered, Willem Defoe, even. was considered. And they went with Michael Keaton because he was in a movie called Clean and Sober, where it was very, apparently he was threw on the drama real hard. So we mentioned that like 50,000 protest letters got sent to Warner Brothers from fans who were worried that by casting a

comedic actor that it was going to turn into another 1960s Batman. And Keaton also studied the Dark Night Returns for inspiration. So again, Frank Miller. having a big role in this. So we talked about all that. One sentence or less, what do you think of Keaton and will move on to Joker? Love them. Yeah.

I mean, I think his Batman was pretty damn good, but his Bruce Wayne as well, he, you could sort of feel the pain of the loss of his parents

a lot. So, yeah. Yeah. He nailed him. So these are the actors who are considered to play The Joker. Tim Curry, David Bowie, John Lithgow, Ray Leota, James Woods,

okay, Brad Durf. I don't think that is. You know who Brad Durf? He's Chuckie, the killer doll. Wormtong from Lord of the Rings. Then what? I've never seen Lord of the Rings. Oh my God. He also apparently wanted to cast

John Glover, who has a lot of very interesting roles. He was in Scrooge. He was in Grimlins, too. He was in one of the Batman movies as well. Yeah, he was the voice of Riddler in the Bruce Tim Batman. He was Dr. Jason Woodrow in Batman and Robin. Yeah, and he also was Lex Luthor's father in Smallville.

Mm-hmm. So, yeah, John Glover was who they wanted, but then they insisted that no, it needs to be a bigger name actor. Apparently Robin Williams wanted the part, but didn't get it. So Jack Nicholson was the top choice since 1980. Wow. Apparently, they've been after him since he was in the Witches of Eastwick. So fans loved Jack Nicholson as the role, but here's my favorite part.

of this. At this point, Jack Nicholson is a massive star. We all know this. And as such, he had the most unique demands. So here you go. Nicholson had what was known as an off-the-clock agreement. His contract specified the number of hours he was entitled to have off each day from the time he left the set to the time he reported back to filming. So he was like, I get all this time off, including commute, as well as being off for all L.A. Lakers home games. He demands. He demands. that all of his scenes be shot in a three-week block and that the schedule lapsed into 106 days. He

reduced his standard $10 million fee for a $6 million fee in exchange for cut of the film's earnings, which led to him getting in excess of $50 million. So good deal on his part. And I think that somebody reports that he might have actually gotten $90 million. And

he also got top billing. So he got top billing over Michael Keaton. I mean, to be fair, this is more the Joker's movie. than Batman's movies. So kind of makes sense. So obviously, let's talk about let's talk about Jack Nicholson as Joker.

I think he was the closest we will ever get to a comic book, Accurate Joker, ever. He was deranged. He kept like the more... See, I like my Joker to still have some of that crime boss leanings to it. I'm not super crazy on like, ever since Heath Ledger was Joker, they've...

comics and stuff are really leaning to you like, oh, the Joker's an anarchist. It's all about chaos. It's like, I still like him to have like a fucking like scheme, like a plot and not just like violence for the sake of violence. Yeah, I feel like that really became a thing more recently, which I don't like either. I had so many great one-liners in this movie as well. Corey, what's your favorite one? Well, I mean, you know, if you ever dance with the dance, devil in the pale moonlight ended up on like i think the top 100 movie lines of all time yeah

what about you dylan oh i like the one where um he said the thing which i abide to tell you right can i tell you the the other one that i'm a big fan of yes never rub another man's rhubarb That is pretty good. And he says it so seriously. John, where are your thoughts on Keaton, or not Keaton, but Nicholson is Joker? Yeah, I thought he was perfect in the role. So entertaining. And like you see the sort of transformation really well as well,

from the sort of smug and sadistic crime boss to the clearly deranged. and maniacal Joker. Like, I thought that transformation was done really well. But yeah, I thought he was fantastic. And the biggest bummer about him being in the

movie is he doesn't make it out of it alive. So it's like the one and only time we got to see this version of Joker. I mean, it was, I mean, love that Joker. those scenes were perfect.

I mean, every scene he showed up in, he was amazing. Every single one of them. Just looked the part, acted the part, dress the part. I just do not think we're going to get a better one, even though I think it was deleted scenes in the Batman movie with Robert Pattinson, what Barry Keogan is like the Joker in that world unless they do some recasting. And even then, it's like such a weird look.

I'm not sure if you guys saw those deleted scenes from that movie. Yeah, it looked as if they were leaning heavily into the Heath Ledger side of things as well with like the weird sort of prosthetics on the face. Yeah, I look more like I think someone mentioned it looked more like chemical burns, like something that, you know, like if he fell into a vatic chemicals, this is probably what he would actually look like. Yeah, yeah. So normally I save this for the end, but there's only four, so I'll, you know, do them as they come. This Batman movie got a 77% of Rotten Tomatoes, very well

loved, and it made $411 million in the box office. So very, very successful. Considering the budget was only $48 million. So made it back and then a ton more. So are you ready to move

past Batman and into the sequel to this? Very much. So. Okay. So we're going to head to 1992. I'm five years old. And this is the very first movie I ever saw in a movie theater, Batman Returns, which was the choice. A movie to be watching it. Yeah. Yeah, right. Right. I think it explains a lot, probably. So Michael Keaton is back in the role of Batman. Tim Burton is back in the directing chair. And we get two new villains for this movie because, as John mentioned, Jack Nicholson's Joker did not make it out of Alive in the prequel. So we have Danny DeVito as the penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. So before we do any surre deeper dives than that, any thoughts just off the cuff.

This is my favorite Batman film. I love this film. I can understand why. I remember seeing this kid. I'm sorry. I remember seeing this as a kid. I didn't see it in the cinema like Corey did but I saw it at home and so much of this film like I remember it like clear as day just because there's

so many little bits in it that and that's good cinematography. It's good it's good it's good stuff like that where like there's all these little bits in it that are so memorable and there's definitely some bits in it where you look back at it now as an adult and go it's kind of stupid

right? Like, there's a bit where I think this is in the second one where Bruce Sweden has like a hard drive and he like plays it like a, he scratches it like a record player like a DJ.

I'm like, I don't think you can do that with a hard drive. Or there's a bit where Penguin has this giant like rubber duck movie. Yeah. And I'm like, that's really stupid.

But also, when you see, it, especially as a kid, you're like, that's cool as hell. Like, the bits where all the penguins were running around, that was cool. The bit that I remember the most that stuck with me for years, I'll never, ever forget this. It's when the penguin bit that guys nose off. Yeah, yeah, that again, you know, when you're talking about, that's an intense first movie in a theater. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, see that. See that when you're a kid. Like, that sticks with you. You know, it's so real. And what I like about that film is when you watch it as a kid, you see all this stuff and like, yeah, fuck you. But then whenever you watch it as an adult, you're like, you really get that like the penguin is this just, you know, real darn trodden. Like he doesn't want to be seen by people.

And then he's manipulated into coming up above grind. And then he's screwed over by those people. And then he gets angry by that with good reason, with a hundred percent good reason. like he knew this was going to happen. He didn't want to come up above the, you know, he didn't want to interact with people. And they screwed him over just like he thought they would. So he's justified in his anger towards people, you know,

which is stuff you understand when you're older. Oh, dude, it's such a good film. Plus, it's real good. Michelle Piper's incredible. Mm-hmm. as a catwoman she's got the whip she's really good in that film

yeah because she does the whole you know like the duality of people you know we talk about that with bad man and Bruce Wayne but she does that really well with Catwoman and

whoever Catwoman's real persona is whose name I forgot right now what's her name what's her name? Elina Kyle's persona Delina Kyle perfect she has a really good job of like like once the suits on

they're a different person and that comes off like really really clearly well there's that famous behind the scenes footage of her nailing the whip tricks like in one shot

and the production crew applauding afterwards so I mean she did very very well job even in that perspective but um also Christopher Walker Watkins this film and he's my favorite doctor him it was funny is

him and Michael Keaton too my favorite doctors they're both in the same film. Yeah. So, so just a background on this one. Tim Burton was really reluctant to make this movie at first because he does not like sequels.

Oh, but really? Yeah. You mean beetle juice, beetle juice? Yeah. I still, that is fucking brilliant, just so you know. We've got to make a third one now, right? You'll just buildies, Beetlejuice.

Yeah. Oh, shit, I said it three times. Do you remember the Freakazoid episode where there was that one villain, if you said his name, he'd appear and take you away? I think so. John, you know, this is why I'm glad you're bagged, because every now and then you just come out of fucking nowhere with a one-liner. Oh, damn. All right. So, so anyway, so this.

This movie is a little more of original. Tim Burton has a lot more control over, like, his image in this. And you can, you can tell. There's a lot more Tim Burton apparent here, whether it's Penguins, Circus of Freaks that are his henchmen, or just how the city's designed. Maybe it's also the fact that fucking Paul Rubens has a cameo in this movie, which is hysterical, like, when I realized that as I got older. I think originally they wanted to do Riddler and Penguin as the villains, but the story. studio pushed more for Catwoman, which was a good idea. Yeah.

Much different dynamic, especially because you could do the sort of the cat and mouse sort of romance tension between the two characters, Batman and Catwoman. And yeah, it's just another thing I saw was that Danny DeVito really didn't want to do this at first. I think he had to be convinced by Jack Nicholson to do it and Tim Burton. And I think like the idea that I read it here that he got it because Tim Burton gave him a picture of a small man sitting on a red and white striped ball with the caption, My name is Jimmy, but my friends call me the hideous penguin boy. Apparently that was that was all Danny DeVito needed to get an idea of what this character was supposed to be. but also like that's that's what he mean like that's the perfect representation of the penguin yes it's it's like if if you say that jack and nickleton is the perfect joker

don't indivito's the perfect penguin 100% he's definitely a version of the penguin you don't think he's the perfect penguin no well i mean so it's a difference yeah like comic accurate penguin is is not like a little freak man he's just a short fat bald dude like so if i think of the penguin i think of i think of i think of donna davedo is the pan i'm like that's that's the penguin that guy yeah yeah i'm just saying like comic accurate wise it's not really it's not really penguin but it is a version of penguin that people absolutely identify with even if you look at penguin in um like adaptations like cartoons and stuff it they definitely draw more from the dan and abedo penguin whether it be the uh penguin that tom kenny voiced

in the Batman cartoon or the Bruce Tim version, all of them got the flipper fingers. And the big nose. Yep, the big nose and the flipper fingers. Something that I kind of noticed about both of these movies is the kind of commentary on the role of power and perception. So, for example, in the 89 Batman, Batman's kind of dealing with the reputation that Joker,

who is like on television, and it does the ending with the parade with the balloons of throwing out money to people, kind of like winning over the general population. And then also the newspapers coverage of him kind of portraying him as like a monster. So he's dealing with it there. And then the whole like penguin plot in Batman Returns

is him becoming the mayor and him using a lot of that power to, you know, get revenge and fuck with people. Yeah. Any thoughts before we go into some of the more casting We don't need to touch on Michael Keaton's casting because he came back in for this one. But there's some interesting names got thrown around. I don't think I have anything else to say about it.

Okay. So what is John up to say? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty much in the same boat. I think it speaks for itself with Danny DeVito's memorable performance and Michelle 5 for being awesome. And then, like you say, Christopher Walken as well. Like just when you thought the movie had peaked, then you get Christopher Walken with some crazy hair.

Which is an incredible trait for everybody. Absolutely. So originally they did not have the idea that Penguin was going to be a little freak. Originally they were going to go with the more traditional version of the Penguin is just a wealthy guy from old money that was holding a grudge against the Wayne family because of they were another powerful old money family. So some original ideas Tim Burton originally wanted to cast Marlon Brando Which has been an interesting Whoa

Right I mean let's be honest He's no fuck away he's gonna do it No no he would have been a massive pain in the ass Like he was in the island of Dr. Moreau I understandably so Have you seen that film? Yeah

It sucks and not because There's a pain in the ass That's also not going to be the first time We bring up the island of Dr. Moreau in today's episode That's interesting Yeah, right. Other names were... Oh, whoa. John, have you seen the film? Yes.

Dr. Murrow? What do you think of it? Many moons ago. I can't really remember too much about it, so... It's not a good sign. That's never a good sign now. Yeah, they had to make some changes due to some personnel issues they had, so it doesn't mirror the book very well.

Oh, not at all. There's some real choices made in that film. Yep. So other actors who are up for the role of Penguin, Dustin Hoffman was a preference that Warner Brothers had. Christopher Lloyd was also rumored to have been a consideration as well as Robert De Niro. What? Yeah, Bobby De Niro was almost the penguin apparently.

Hi. Well, like you said, they were just going with the original idea of him just being a corrupt aristocrat. So. But I wouldn't I wouldn't pay Robert De Niro to do that. So when they had the idea of doing the deformed human bird hybrid man, that's when they went with Danny DeVito. Jeez, that's really harsh on Danny DeVito. Right. Now, Danny DeVito, since it has a lot of love for this character.

DC, not too long ago, probably two, three years ago, they did this comic that was sort of like a collection of villain stories. and one of them was written about the penguin, written by Danny DeVito, and he said that it was sort of how he envisioned the character would be if he had survived Batman Returns, in which Penguin is sort of like this unlikely hero who saves the world from global warming and is married to Catwoman. So, yeah, Danny DeVito had a good time with that one. That's nice. So the other villain, of course, is Selena Kyle Catwoman. Originally, Annette Benning was cast, but she had to drop out to come.

because she was pregnant. And in sort of the opposite issue, they had a lot of actresses lobbying to get the part. Ellen Barkin, Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Jason Lee, Julie Newmar, who's, you know, played Catwoman in the 60 show. Lena Olin, Susan Sarandon, Raquel Welch. And some of the more interesting names were Cher and Madonna. Madonna, who is still getting into acting at this point where, you know, she was in Dick Tracy and stuff.

Now, of course, the most famous one was Sean Young, who was originally supposed to be Vicki Vale in the first Batman movie. And have you heard any of the Sean Young Catwoman stories? No. So she showed up on a late night talk show host when this movie was still in development, dressed as Catwoman, pitching her being Catwoman. I think it was Arsenio. And she apparently went to the Warner Brothers film lot in a homemade Catwoman costume for an impromptu audition for Tim Burton, who reportedly hit under his desk. So she just surprised Tim Burton in his office, dressed as Catwoman. So there you go.

If you're freaking out Tim Burton, that says a lot. Yep. That does. Originally, they wanted to, the Christopher Walken role was kind of modeled after a character that Vincent Price played. Walkin Moore modeled the role after some very corrupt people before and he said, quote, I tend to play mostly villains and twisted people,

unsavory guys. I think it's my face of the way I look. If you do something effective, producers want you to do it again and again. So, apparently Burgess Meredith was supposed to make a cameo as Penguin's father, but became ill, and that's why he was replaced with Paul Rubens. Did you know, Paul Rubens went on to play Penguins' dad in Gotham as well, the TV series that came out, like, five years ago, or whatever it was? Yeah, it's been a bit longer in five years, but I did not know that, and that's awesome, though. Yeah. Rest in peace, Peewee.

Mm-hmm. We kind of touched on a couple of things. Some of the controversies that went around with it was, of course, of course, course, Batman killing people. So that was the writers did not care about comic book fans. They didn't care about comic accurate Batman, sort of a preview of Zach Snyder in his treatment of the character. But, yeah, Batman's shirt blows the dude up with a bomb.

Just blows them up. Yeah, but it's funny, though. He kills a bunch of people with machine gun on the Batmobile. That was an accident. So some other things were PETA was not a big fan of how the penguins were treated because they were real, real penguins. So PETA was not a big fan of it,

mainly also because the birds, they didn't get fresh drinking water. Instead, they got a small chlorinated pool, which that's not good to drink. But yeah, Tim Burton. Apparently insisted that they did not use real animals because of that and ensured that penguins were treated well. Apparently there were some live penguins that were being mixed with puppets and 40 emperor penguin suits were worn by little people. Just across the board.

They used every resource available, including some of CGI. Wow. There is a scene which Michelle Pfeiffer puts a live bird in her mouth. that was real and Michelle Pfeiffer said she would never do that again because she did not consider, you know, the risk of disease and injury. Well, you don't think quite that kind of thing. You just do it. Yes. There's a scene in which there's an organ grinder monkey and it's supposed to go down a set of stairs with a note for the penguin. And apparently Danny DeVito in its full costume that the monkey didn't care. for it. As DeVito stated, it leapt at his testicles and said, the monkey looked at me, froze,

and then leapt right at my balls. Thank God it was a padded costume. And also four stuntmen were injured in a scene where one of Max Shrek's superstores exploded. So, you know, there was some, there was some stuff there. Just adds to the film, though. Yeah. I did also see that there was a, the, the, so the end credit scene, the very final scene before the credits run, is the bat signal in Catwoman kind of appearing in the foreground to imply that she didn't die? Apparently, that was added in post-production. So apparently because test audiences really liked the character, so they had to stand-in use it because Michelle Fiverr wasn't available to shoot that shot. So I guess they were like, oh, the fans really, the audience really liked the catwoman character. We can't just, you know,

maybe we show that she's still alive and we can bring her back in later. They like the character so much that they never used her again. Yes. So we didn't really get to talk about Danny Elfman doing the music for Batman Returns and Batman. Oh, yeah. Yep, legendary composer and frontman for the band Oingo Boingo. Not sure if your feelings on Oingo, Boingo, but he did the first soundtrack. Apparently he was reluctant to do this one.

He didn't care for Prince's pop songs getting put in with his soundtrack. I think he was a little happier, though, because one of my favorite bands, Susie and the Banshees, had a song called Face to Face that got used in the costume ball scene with Selena Kyle and Bruce Wayne having a very romantic moment. So good times there. Apparently Tim Burton and Danny Elfman had a fallout during the making of this movie and ended up becoming friends again after it was all over. but I just find that kind of amusing. Well, it was nice that they became friends again. Yeah.

So any final thoughts on Batman returns before I kind of go into the numbers. It's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to really paint it as a kid's movie, that's for sure. But, like, especially as, I'm pretty sure that we're, Wasn't there like some promotional tie-ins with like Burger King or McDonald's or something? It was McDonald's.

Yeah. It's like, yeah, I'm not sure they know their audience. Well, and the action figure is really interesting too because, so originally Tim Burton wanted to put a Robin in the movies that was going to be played by Marlon Wains. So there's a Robin action figure that was made to tie into the Batman Returns, but it was designed to look like the Tim Drake Robin. in the comics and not an African-American man. Additionally, the penguin figures that were made were reprints, or not reprints, but recastings of the DC Superpowers figures that came out before them. So the penguin there is wearing a little suit and a little top hat and looks nothing like

the Danny DeVito version. I had that penguin. In fact, I had both versions. I had the one in the blue costume and the one in the black costume. So here's some of the numbers on that. So Batman, the 89 movie did 77%. Batman returns at 82%. So a little bit more well-recepted by Rotten Tomatoes.

However, on the financial side, Batman did $411 million. Batman returns only did 266. So did not make as much money as the first, and the budget was $50 to $80 million. So it was still considered. a success, but it didn't, it had a higher budget and didn't make as much money back. Warner Brothers was not happy with Batman Returns making less money, and they also were not

happy with how the material was deemed too dark and inappropriate for children because McDonald's ended up recalling the Happy Meal toys because of this. So after this, they were not interested with Tim Burton coming back to direct a third movie. at that point they kind of started looking at other directors to fill in the slot for Batman Forever. So Sam Ramey, which is fucking hysterical when you think about like Tim Burton's a little too dark. Let's get the guy who did Evil Dead too. And so Joel Schumacher was selected instead and he got Tim Burton's blessing. So the first thing about Batman Forever is you have a different, you have a different director who has a very,

different image. And Joel Schumacher absolutely loved the kitchiness of the 1960s Batman. And so you used to really see that. Batman Forever is a lot more neon. So you're kind of losing the dark and forever grim atmosphere of Batman and Batman returns, which like you said, even there's no sunny days. Even in the scene shot in the day, it's gloomy outside. Batman Forever, Night in Gotham is sort of like a weird nightclub almost there's a lot of like vibrant pinks and oranges and yellow like neon lights that are used to accentuate things first off we mentioned this before but val kilmer was brought in to be batman uh there was a lot of other choices on the casting including um William baldwin dean kane tom hanks even keanu reeves uh Kurt russell ralph fines Daniel day lewis

Donnie Depp and Kilmer was selected on this one. He signed on without reading a script or even knowing who the director was going to be. Can you imagine Dianette Lewis doing this fucking film? Yeah, right? What the fuck? He would not enjoy himself one day. He would not, no, no, no. That would have been a bad time.

So I remember in magazines when they were going to when there were all these rumors about what the next Batman movie is going to be. And there was a couple of ideas. One, they wanted to do an adaptation of Frank Miller's Batman year one. And apparently Michael Keaton was really into the idea. But Warner Brothers shot that down because they wanted a sequel. They did not want to do a prequel. And I remember reading in a magazine that they thought about bringing in the scarecrow as a villain with the Ridler and the return of Catwoman.

but he they did not like it apparently before they decided Tim Burton was not going to be brought in they had focus group meetings and he hated the title and he was more interested in directing Ed Wood and I'm not sure if you guys have seen Ed Wood but I love that film how yeah movie I love Ed Wood so good it's underrated so the idea that Warner Brothers had is they wanted this movie to appeal more to what they referred to as the MTV generation. So that was going to be like people who were kids in the 80s and are now in their team like becoming teenagers in the 90s. So they were focused a little bit more on merchandising and making sure that they could do it unlike the Tim Burton where like we mentioned McDonald's pulled their sponsorship essentially. Yeah. So we talked about, we talked about Val Kilmer being cast the love interest in this movie is a psychiatrist named Chase Meridian and originally they wanted Renee Russo. They got Nicole Kidman. Other names that were mentioned were Sandra Bullock, Robin Wright, Gene Triplehorn, and Linda Hamilton. Rob De Niro. Well, fun fact about Robert

De Niro because one of the villains is Two-Face, played by Harvey Dent. Billy D. Williams took on that role of Harvey Dent in the 1989 Batman, but Joel Schumacher cast Tommy Lee Jones instead, which is sort of a weird if you consider these movies in a canon, like Harvey Dent went from being an African-American man, Tommy Lee Jones. But other people rumored to have been considered for the role of Two-Face, Al Pacino, Clint Eastwood, what?

Martin Sheen and Robert De Niro. What the fuck? These have to be lies, right? Clint Eastwood? Are you really telling me? This is just who they wanted to cast. Not necessarily saying who are in talks to cast. But this is who Joel Schumacher was like in the laundry list of ideas of this is who I want for this role.

He was like Clint Eastwood. Could you imagine like cranky-ass Clint Eastwood's two-faced though? No, that's why I don't get. Like why would anybody look at Clint Eastman go? he would be the perfect two-face. Clint East one has one one has one face. So,

Tommy O'Jones was apparently reluctant to the idea of taking on this role, but his son insisted that he'd do it. The other major villain was the Riddler. So apparently Robin Williams was originally considered, and so was John Malkovich.

Robin Williams apparently turned it down, and Jim Carrey was offered the role instead. Jim Carrey, who had this in 1994, was entering his like hottest period as an actor. Yeah. Also, allegedly Michael Jackson was lobbying really hard to play the role, which would have made this even wilder if Michael Jackson in 1994 was playing the riddler. Michael Jackson is a riddler?

That's surely, surely Michael Jackson should have played two-face. Thank you. So other names that were originally considered, Brad Durf shows up again because that's who Tim Burton, really wanted to play the Joker and or Scarecrow. Mickey Dolans of the Monkeys. What? Yeah. Matthew Broderick, Phil Hartman,

Steve Martin, and Kelsey Grammer. Kelsey Grammer? Did you imagine Fraser as a Riddler? Oh, my God. That's really funny. That would be, oh my God, that's such a total, like, if you think about Jim Carrey, riddler, very over the top, very like in your face.

That's a totally different that's a totally different riddler. Yeah, yeah. So and that's, and so that that was kind of the idea. Like, so Tommy E. Jones did not fucking care about this movie. He hated acting alongside Jim Carrey.

And he just played two face like Caesar Romero's Joker for all intents and purposes. I will tell you the setting for like Two Faces Lair is something that sticks with me because I thought it was so fucking cool. Um, another thing you consider was Jim Carey took his inspiration from Frank Gorshans riddler from the 1960 series, uh, which I am absolutely all for. I fucking love Frank Gorsion in that. Yeah, definitely see that in front. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The giggling.

Um, so this is also our first movie with Robin, uh, with Dick Grayson taking on it. And the casting was interesting. So originally Marlon, Wayne's was given the role for Tim Burton and when Schumacher took it over, he scrapped that idea. Although Marlon Wayne's got paid for two movies that he never was in, which is wild to think about. Easiest

fucking money. The easiest. The easiest is working for AW. Leonard DiCaprio was considered, but he decided he didn't want the role. Other characters, other actors who were considered Matthew Damon,

Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, because you can't separate the Corries. We are. We're a triad. We're all in together. You got a new club? You got a little special magic rings? Yep.

Yep. I'm the only one who I'm not going to say it. Mark Wahlberg, Michael Worth, Danny Dyer, Toby Stevens, Ewan McGregor, Jude Law, Alan Cumming, Scott Speedman, were all considered. Do you be Danny Dyer, the UK actor? Yes. Jesus Christ, can you imagine that? Wait, man, Batman, how's it going, mate?

Let me just, let me be real clear. Donnie Dyer was going to be who? Robin. Robin. Danny Dyer. Danny fucking Dyer. Somebody who was in charge of casting a Batman film looked and listened to Danny Dyer

and thought, this is good. This could work. yeah what the fuck what so um yeah right so they they I remember I also heard the story

that Christian Bale was also up for the role with the story being is that they went to a comic convention and they went up to kids and they went they held up pictures of of Christian bail and Chris O'Donnell and they said who could win in a fight and allegedly if the story is accurate which I don't that seems ludicrous idea that apparently a majority of the kids that Chris O'Donnell could be Christian Bale to fight.

I agree with this if the picture they used was Christian Bail from Newies. Yes. If they just showed him the clip of singing how he really wanted to go to Santa Fe. Yes, then I understand why the kids picked him. Yeah. So Chris O'Donnell was cast as Robin, and this is my favorite bit because very famously, you two had like the big song on the soundtrack. and the music video they shot for it.

This was during the period of time where Bono had created the McFisto character. I don't know what your U2 lore is. Dylan, I imagine it's very, very in-depth as being an Irishman. Almost. As from living in an hour, you're forced to acknowledge YouTube.

Yeah. Like that's just part of, you know, we have like five artists that come from artists, so you know who they all are. and most of the people in Ireland are very irritated by YouTube but whatever character you just said McFisto

I don't know Please please look up a picture of McFisto How do you spell that? M-A-C-P-H-I-S-T-O Joel Schumacher really wanted to work

Bono as McFisto into this movie. Corey? Yes. Why did you do this to me? I could have gone the rest of my life. Happily. Not knowing this fucking thing existed. So yeah, the music video that they made for the song

that you two did, kiss me, kill me, thrill me. I think it's what it was called. Anyway, the music video featured clips from Batman Forever mixed in with these animated things where Bono's like alter egos, the fly. and McFisto are like interacting with each other. It's weird. Apparently this movie, there are some issues on set.

Joel Schumacher did not get along with Val Kilmer. Allegedly called him childish and impossible. Oh, I understand the reference you made already or not. How about Dr. Moreau? Yeah. Yes. And apparently he refused to speak to Joel Schumacher for two weeks after Joel Schumacher told Val Kilmer to stop being rude. And Joel Schumacher also said that Tommy Lee Jones was a source for trouble.

As Joel Schumacher said, quote, Jim Carrey was a gentleman and Tommy Lee was threatened by him. I'm tired of defending overpaid, overprivileged actors. I pray I don't work with them again. And in a 2014 interview, Jim Carrey acknowledged that Tommy Lee Jones was not friendly to him and recounted an incident wherein Jones found him off set during the production and said, quote, I hate you, I really don't like you. I cannot sanction your buffoonery.

He said that on the Norm McDonald's show. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that because I remember there was a big thing between Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones that came out after that film. And yeah, Jim Carrey said that, which is wild, isn't it? Yeah. But what I think's weird is that you said that Tommy Lee Jones was, was, um, modeling his toothpaste

from the old bad man TV show yeah but to me well yes well you only mean he's he's modeling it on on somebody else and that's his justification as an actor

for the part that he was playing but for me if you were at all clued in to A the time that they were in and B like you're sensibilities as an actor,

you would have known that you can't out Jim Carrey, Jim Carrey. You're on set with Jim Carrey and he's going like full ball to the wall, you know, here he goes, Jim Carrey, which was great, which worked perfectly for that Riddler. I thought, like, it was

such a unique character. But the Two-Face character was always trying to bow up to him and you're like, this isn't going to work, man. You aren't, I like Tommy Lee Jones, you're not Jim you need to have seen that, like, read the room and go, all right, I'm going to try to be a little more subtle,

just a little bit, you know, a little bit more toned down and work it that way, so that there's just the justification between the two characters as opposed to them being almost the same character. So, so to hit on something real quick, the soundtrack to this goes really hard. Apparently it's sold as much as Prince's soundtrack for the Batman 1989 film. listen to the artists that are on the soundtrack to this movie U2

PJ Harvey Massive Attack The Flaming Lips The Offspring Covering the Damned Nick Cave Sunny Day Real Estate and the Flaming Lips So that's just like naming What the fuck are sunny day real estate being on there

Right? The Godfathers of Emo What the fuck? And it's always weird how there's like a weird In all of these movies so far there's sort of like an OG of goth culture on there like with Nick fucking cave being on here too it's wild of shit um of course everybody knows this soundtrack because kiss from a rose by seal won three Grammy awards for best male pop vocal performance record of the year and song of the year good job on him we've not really talked about the contents of the movie itself just sort of all the weird

stuff that went into making it so real quick um two faces there he doesn't really seem to have too much motivation except for getting money uh Batman is there on his own doing his own thing dealing with the psychological trauma of like what has happened to him in his life, thus him seeing the therapist. Ridler shows up and he's like a Bruce Wayne superfan that gets dejected and decides to get revenge by using his invention that basically steals people's brainwaves, very much like the Matt Fruro character from the Generation X movie that we watched. And Robin loses both of his parents to Two-Face and his brother in a senseless act of

violence and it's about Bruce Wayne taking him in and helping him, you know, find his way as an adult. So that's sort of the plot to Batman forever. They play around with secret identities a lot, but really it's sort of, you know, there's a lot of goofiness in that movie. Yes, it is very heavy on the goofy. Very heavy on the goofy. Which is kind of what I liked. And I, you know, maybe this plays into exactly what they were looking for. But like, as a kid, I love that film. And I still do kind of like it. I have a real soft spot for it. But as a kid, when you watch it,

it's what you want from a Batman film. You know, there's a crazy over-the-top villain that you can't take your eyes off. There's a twist. You know, you don't know what's going to happen, but Batman still manages to kick some ass. It's what you want as a kid. You know, so maybe if that is what

those, you know, network executives were trying to go for, they didn't like the Tim Burton one because it was a bit too dark and they went or something that was very clearly kind of campy and over the top but kids got it kids liked it so

they should accomplish in a way right? Yeah so apparently this movie according to Joel Schumacher his cut was two hours and 40 minutes how long is it normally not nearly that not nearly that

47 minutes so it's 122 minutes so we're looking at a little over two hours So there was almost another hour of content that got cut, which very famously involves like a giant bat because McFarlane is putting out a Batman Forever toy line. So like basically they're super deluxe figures, but the characters and actors from the Batman Forever movie. They look pretty sick. But yeah, we have, is there any more thoughts on Batman Forever before we get into the numbers? That answers that question.

There you go. No problem. So, Rotten Tomatoes to give you kind of a quick rundown, Batman, 77%. Batman returns 82%. Batman Forever, 41. So half of equal, like exactly half of the critical acclaim of Batman returns. No worry. Yeah, yeah.

But it did make $336 million, which was more than Batman returns did. Not as much as Batman 89, but it was more than that. The budget was $100 million. They made $336. So a little bit better performance-wise, but at the end of the day, still fell short of the 1989 Batman. So all good things must come to an end. Are you guys ready to discuss Batman and Robin?

Not really. Can we go back to talk about the penguin again? So Batman and Robin 1997. Joel Schumacher is back to prize his role. They brought the same writer back from Batman Forever. And they decided to, there was a bit more of a rush for this movie. Normally there was like a good three-year break. So 89 to 92, 92 to 95.

this one was only a two-year break between the movies. And Joel Schumacher wanted to pay homage to the classic comic books of Batman of his childhood, which again was firmly in the Silver Age where things got real goofy and campy. You're going to see that. A lot of this is based off of the Bruce Tim animated series episode Heart of Ice. It was written by Paul Denny. so that is our Mr. Freeze's storyline

and yeah Chris O'Donnell came back as Robin Val Kilmer decided not to come back and of course Joel Schumacher stated that quote he sort of quit and we sort of fired him didn't he do some other quote where he was like

Val Kilmer did me two great things as Batman the first thing he did was he was Batman that led to part of the success that film. The second great thing he did was refused to be bad on for the second film. Yeah, apparently Velkeler was not aware that they were going to rush this one, and he'd already committed to The Saint and Heat. So that one got thrown out.

So we were talking about people to potentially replace him. David DeCovine alleged that he was considered for the role, but jokingly said that his nose was too big. and Danny Dyer again William Baldwin apparently was considered but really they ended up going with George Clooney

because they liked his performance in from dusk till dawn and I guess they liked his the way he carried his character in that film so we get a bad man that has a in the last one did you say one of the Baldwin's was considered William Baldwin again

Billy Baldwin again why why Billy Baldwin is kind of the only yeah and he's kind of the only likeable of them like all of the Baldwin's are equally detestable but he's like the most likable so that's like being the most popular guy in prison you know yes

I will say he's probably the most likeable of the ballroom he didn't kill a guy yeah that we know of there we go hey there we go so So they wanted to go with, they wanted to go with Mr. Freeze as the villain.

Very famously, we know that Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast. It was the 90s were a huge time for Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as the 80s. Other names that were considered were Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, and Patrick Stewart, although Joel Schumacher has denied that Patrick Stewart was considered. So Joel Schumacher wanted to cast Schwarzenegger because he decided that Mr. Freeze had to be big and strong. He wanted a big boy. So they stated that the Mr. Free's costume costum cost

$1.5 million to develop and make. That's a chunk of the budget. So Schwarzenegger did not want to shave his head. So he put on a bald cap. They put a blue LED light inside of his mouth because that's like a thing when he talks it like lights up. Apparently they had to wrap it in balloons because battery assets started to leak in Schwarzenegger's mouth. You don't want that. And yeah, apparently it took six hours to apply

the makeup every day, which was a bit of a problem because his shooting time and his contract was limited to 12 hours a day. So half of his time that he was committed to being there was spent putting on makeup. So our other villain in this movie is, of course, Poison Ivy, who is portrayed by Uma Thurman. That was a very big coming of age for some gentlemen. And other actresses that were considered for the role were Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, and Julia Roberts.

Apparently, Joel Schumacher first became very aware of her from the movie, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which are you familiar with that movie? I haven't seen it. Todd have you seen it? Of course. I think you would love it, Dylan. It's real fucking out there. I think you would love it.

Okay. Yeah, put that on your list. Sure. All right. So additionally, we have the addition of Batgirl, played by Alicia Silverstone, and apparently she had to lose 10 pounds for the role and would later go on to say that there was a lot of body shaming while filming

promotion for the movie so that's yeah that's not fun uh chris o'donnell uh in regards to the making of this movie uh chris o'donnell stated that batman forever felt sharper and more focused and it felt like everything got softer he said the first one i felt like i was making a movie and the second one i felt like i was making a toy commercial uh he also said that the um costume as Robin was a lot less comfortable than it was a Batman forever. John Glover, who we just mentioned, who played Dr. Jason Woodrow, John stated, quote, Joel Schumacher would sit on a crane with a megaphone and yell before each take. Remember everyone, this is a cartoon.

It was hard to act because that kind of set the tone for the film. I mean, that makes sense when you watch that film. Yeah, it's real out there. So a fun thing about here is, again, the soundtrack goes real fucking hard. Very famously, the soundtrack is sort of bookended by two songs by The Smashing Pumpkins. I remember one of them.

Yeah. Dylan, if you don't remember the titles, it's going to come as a surprise. The first is the end is the beginning is the end. And the last song is, the last song is, the last song is, the beginning is the beginning. Oh, fucking Billy Corgan. Yeah.

They end up using the beginning as the end as the beginning in the trailer for the first trailer for the Watchman movie in the early 2010s as well. Good song, though. I'm a big fan of both those Smashing Pumpkin songs. So interesting soundtrack again, which is really funny because they have like those Smashing Pumpkin songs are kind of dark sounding. So it's funny to me that the really cartoony Batman movie also has like the harder smashing pumpkin songs. whereas the darker bandit forever has like the U2 songs well that was the smash moment sign at the time you know the chore yolo they went real john yule though really

but that was when they're after like a lot of the more experimental stuff they were doing a lot of darker stuff for that album and that's the kind of sign that came out for yeah that was like what a door and it was a door machinima god of machines it was definitely before machinima i think it was door that had a very specific sign to it and that's what came i were just everything they were doing you know um again the pumpkins won a grammy award for this so for best hard rock performance so if in the 90s if you wanted to win a grammy you had to be on the batman soundtracks is what i've learned from this unless you're sunny day real estate unless i don't you know i don't think say any real estate would have been won in a grammy it seemed very uh like jericho in style

okay but isn't the funny isn't the basis from Sunday the real estate the basis for the food virus now Nate Mendel yeah so like having they want to shit on the Grammys

yeah so who's now yeah exactly proven I miss the opportunity to see Sunday day real estate a couple years ago it makes me sad you could have seen them

I could have seen them they were on tour and they were on tour here wow that would be good man yeah This is not comic books or even wrestling related. Go listen to S90 real estate.

Yeah. So we kind of hinted at this previously, but the storylines in this movie were the Heart of Ice themed where Mr. Freeze is stealing a bunch of diamonds and shit so that he can create a cure for his wife, Nora, who has an incurable disease and is sort of suspended in animation in the process of that bunch of corrupt scientists sabotaged his work and turned him into the frozen monster man that he is umma thurman had a very similar thing where she was uh an environmentalist who was attacked and she turns to a weird plant lady and also professional former professional wrestler jeep swenson played the role of bane in the most unbane like performance of all time

yeah do you know what it took me years to realize that that was bane right after i've seen that Nothing like Bain. Nothing like Bain. I'm like, are you sure, that's Bain? Because he doesn't do anything. Not at all. If you're writing Bain, you want to make him like kick ass and they were like, no, he's this fucking sidekick to the plant woman.

Who is kind of a sidekick to Frostboy? Well, no, she, like, that was actually the kind of thing that I liked was that Umah Thurman had like her poison ivy had like those ulterior motives. So she was just clearly manipulating Mr. Freese. Um, because it kind of, the kind of thing that they kept going to is that Mr. Freeze is just an example of somebody who had a really bad day, you know? And that was like going into the Palladney thing where he's almost a sympathetic character. It's just that he's played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and he's massive and he's doing a lot of like bad ice puns. They never stop

with the puns. No. I will tell you though. A fucking guy opens his mark, it's puns. I will tell you though, my dream Halloween costume is Mr. Freeze when he's in his layer in like the polar bear slippers with the bathrobe making his goons sing the ice miser song dream Halloween costume benefits of being bald I can do that shit easily I will say he's the most entertaining part of the movie is I mean that's the thing is bad but it's like you can't take your eyes off of him yeah I think it's that power of Arnold in the 90s that's the most frustrating thing about that film right we have to admit that as much as those ice puns annoy the fucker to me. Because that's a very Arnold thing.

That's what he, you know, that used to be a thing in his action films. He would kill somebody and then have a weak quip. That was just an action movie trope in general, though. But Arnold did that a lot. Yes. Because he was in a lot of action films.

He had a lot of kill a lot of people, did a lot of quips. So somebody was like, what if we just take the quips? I put him on Arnold all the time. How could that be at all irritating? And it turns out, It's incredibly irritating.

And yet, as we've already established, the least irritating part of the film. So real quick, I think the thing that we got to touch on, and we can touch on it as long as we want or not. So the reason Batman is getting involved in all this, Mr. Free stuff, is that Alfred Pennyworth has contracted the same disease that Nora Freeze has contracted and he is dying. which leads us to the introduction to the back girl character who in a weird thing i've yet to really see an explanation for it um so in the comics there's been three different back girls but the one back girl that everybody knows is barbara gordon emphasis on gordon she's commissioner gordon's daughter right so in batman and robin barbara gordon is barbara pennyworth where she is alfred's niece that was like sent on off to boarding school. But like Michael Goff is very old. Yes. Very old. So like does his brother or sister like 30 years younger than he is? I mean that does happen. I can tell you that for sure. My brother is 15 years older than I am. My brother is 51 years old looking down the barrel of 52. I get it. But it's still wild to think that Alicia Silverstone, who's character

is kind of like, implies like still young girl, maybe in college, like her first few years. Her uncle is like a septuagenarian. So, oh, but let's put this in the context, right? So what age you think that character is supposed to be? At least you're Silverstone's character. I don't know. Because that's what bothers me about it. What do you think?

Like maybe 18, 20? I'd say 20. Right, let's say 20. So if you had a daughter right now, and then that daughter, 20 years later, is 20. What age is your brother? 70. My brother might be dead. Right.

So you can see that timeline kind of checks out. All right. Let's push fast to the age thing because it still makes me wonder, why did we do that? Right. Why did they have to, why did we go with, yeah, why did we decide that Barbara Gordon needed to be Alfred's niece and not Commissioner Gordon because we were talking about how the same actor played Commissioner Gordon all four movies and he never had a role really considering how important Commissioner Gordon has always been in the comics. That's it then because like at least Alfred had a part to play in like an emotional crux in like some of the previous movies. whereas Commissioner Gordon was just like a plot device basically in the three previous ones.

Yeah. So here we have, there's so many, so many things I want to talk about. I want to hit them very quick and brief because I don't want this to go too long. We've been a while since we've had a longer episode, but like seriously, the things I want to hit on, do you think they just put Batgirl in this movie? Because she doesn't even have the bat ears on her costume, despite the toy they made of her having them. them. She was just wearing a mask like Robin. But do you think

they put the Barbara Pennyworth character in this movie to try to sell toys to little girls? Yes. Yes. Because they made like a Barbie. Because I remember they made like a Barbie of Poison Ivy and a Barbie of like back girl. So that's my second point. Do you think they put a girl in here

so they can have somebody punch poison ivy? Yes. Because I don't think Michael Keaton never punched her. A punched catwoman. Well, because he wanted to sleep with her. Yeah, see. So, all right, so that's the other thing. Three, burlesque scene

of poison ivy undressing as a giant purple gorilla. One of the best scenes in the movie or no? Is it better than the mall ice skating around the fucking laboratory? That's pretty good, too. That's the one thing I remember about that film. That is the point where I'm like, I think I'm good. I think I'm done

but watch a Batman today. Yeah, yeah. I... I... It's very quick. Yeah, it's very quick. Yeah, it's like within the first five, ten minutes. I saw that and I'm like,

this, I know this is going to sum up the rest of the film. I don't think I need to see the rest of the film. Yeah. So, so a couple of things are like the weird joky stuff. Like, as Michael, as the John Glover statement about Joel Schumacher saying, remember, this is a

cartoon. We have the bat credit card. That was the thing that came up in this where, so basically poison ivy secretes a hormone that makes every man around her super fucking horny, right? That's that's that.

Because that's like she builds a, yeah, she puts that tension between Batman and Robin, where Robin becomes transfixed with her and assumes that Batman's trying to steal her from him and he wants to go off on his own and go solo and which is interesting because they designed the robin costume to look more like night wings with a cape but regardless we have that going into that's there there's that plot point other plot point Barbara Pennyworth and her grand uncle dad thing with alfred other plot point

we got to find a cure for alfred and the only person who might have it is mr freeze we got all that stuff out of the way there's like there's a lot of plot points none of them are particular really good. No. But so we have the back credit card and I remember commercials for McDonald's. I can't remember this was the Val Kilmer era, which is probably very well was, but like Batman and the Batmobile and Alfred says, sir, do you want me to, you know, prepare dinner for you? And he goes, no thanks. I'll get drive through and he goes to a McDonald's. Have you not, have you noticed it doesn't seem like a lot of these movies do the tie-in stuff to like fast food restaurants or stuff anymore?

that's really weird probably for the best right probably for the best but it's interesting like if you're making a film do you have to make that film specifically for McDonald's or could you just make it because you want to make a film yeah you know what I mean

let's we'll get the numbers out of the way real quick so 77% Batman 89 82% Batman returns 41% Batman Forever Batman and Robin give me a number that you think it is 18 John

I'm going to go 25. Dylan, you're closest 12. Whoa. Whoa. Not well received. Now, it's important to note that Rotten Tomatoes is the score as of today. Anyone can go on to Rotten Tomatoes and make a new thing. So this is not to suggest that it was this poorly received at the time.

It was, though. A lot of people called it incoherent and mediocre, but. Correct. So money-wise, $411 million, 266 million for Batman returns, $336 million for Batman forever. Batman and Robin, what do you think? 86. That's low. Yeah.

I'm going to say 150. 238. So not as bad as you guys thought, but $238 million is what I made. People, okay, so here's a couple of things. The movies were well received. Like, people did like these Batman movies. They were very heavily marketed. The toy lines, the clothing, all that stuff,

taking that into consideration. Another thing, George Clooney's popularity at the time. Like, George Clooney was considered, like, one of the world's sexiest men at this point. He still is. Apparently. So, those are the four Batman movies from the 90s.

As you can tell, they went from, like, Tim Burton's focused on the art and the visual storytelling fuck the comic books fuck little kids, fuck product placement don't fuck that are kids to Joel Schumacher who kind of bridged that gap originally

and then just went way too far for the next movie and it kind of tanked these versions of the Batman movies and there was not another Batman movie until Christian Bale being cast for Batman begins with Christopher Nolan which was a very, again, a very drastically different take on the character.

Any thoughts about Batman and Robin before we kind of just put a cap on this whole thing? I mean, I think the reviews kind of spoke for itself, right? Like, I didn't like it. Like, I really didn't like it. The other one, you know, was kind of campy and over the top, but like it kind of worked in that film. a lot of the stuff in this film just didn't work for me. It was very campy. He didn't know kind of what film it wanted to be.

I just wasn't a fan. I thought, to his credit, you know, George Clooney did the best he could. A lot of those guys did the best he could. But God damn it, they just could. George Clinton was a better Batman the Val Kilmer. I don't know if that's controversial, but I'm going to say that. I'm going to put that on record.

I would say that's controversial. Because I don't necessarily agree with that. that. Okay. I thought Falcimer was a really boring Batman. Just super boring. But I think, but you consider

like, at the end of the day, Bruce Wayne is not somebody you want to hang out with. And I thought that George Clooney was a bit too charming for the role. But that's George Clooney, though. He's just playing George Clooney.

That's the problem I had with him. Right. But, but he's great. So I understand you wouldn't want to be friends with Bruce Wayne. Fair enough. But like you said, because George Clinton is so charming, you can't help but like him. Whereas about Kilmer, as Batman as Bruce Wayne, both of them, he was just super boring.

He just wasn't interesting. Like he had the same face through the whole film. You know what I mean? I did not change his face. I just bought him as a damaged individual, which is what he was. I bought him as a slightly malfunctioning robot. John Wian? Well, I mean, like, on that front, I can say that Val Kilmer felt like a continuation of what Michael Keaton was trying to do.

Oh, I don't think so. Keating had a quiet intensity to him. Yeah. I think that's what Val Kilmer was going for. And it just came across as quite robotic and... Yeah, boring. Yeah. Well, I think, for me, if you...

your rank of the bat, out of the four films we've just talked about, if you're rank of the Batman, I'd say Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, then Val Kilmer. I mean, I'd probably agree with that, to be honest. Right. I just disagree. I just, I have such a problem with George Clooney, just being George Clooney. Because we're talking about

actors playing... Don't you have a problem of Val Kilmer, just being Val Kilmer? I... George Clooney beat George Clooney is more interesting than Val Kilmer being Val Kilmer. But I'm looking at who's playing Batman, and like, I read a lot of Batman, and I do not see George Clooney at all in any of the

adaptations I've ever read. Even going back to like the 1960s with Adam West. Like George Clooney is just being smarmy-ass George Clooney. Right, but also look what you have to work with. He was working in a toy commercial according to Chris O'Donnell. And he sold a lot of toys.

He certainly did. Didn't translate to success though at the box office. But in that context, he did a good job. I actually remember the Root. of like, I remember Jeff Goldblum was teased as like, like, they, like, people were talking about like, oh, he's going to be scared crow. Robert Deere.

Robert Deere. You'll get that job one of these days. Danny, Danny Dyer. John, can you give us the Danny Dyer impersonation one more time? Like, geezer. There you go. Remember whenever he called, David Cameron of Twad on TV?

Oh, yeah, it was glorious. So we're going to go ahead and wrap it up here. The 90s Batman movies were really big for me, obviously, as a kid. Like I said, Batman Returns was the first time I ever went to the movie theater. It's so interesting to see the different directions that character has gone with Christopher Nolan's more realistic take. And then you have Robert Pattinson version, which we're getting a sequel of. Ben Affleck's interesting take in the Batman move as Batman with Snyder. And we're going to get a whole new Batman for the James Gunn version.

and it's going to feature Damien as is Robin, which will be interesting for the first adaptation of Batman and Batman and Son in a live action sense. Yeah, I'm not sure how that's going to work, to be honest, having a kid, sidekick. But that was our rundown of the Batman movies from our childhood for all intents and purposes. If you're curious about more in-depth takes on the actors who play Batman themselves, you got a little snippet there of George Clooney and Val Kilmer and our... opinions on them. Go check back on volume two. We have like said, the whole episode where we break down every single actor going back to the 1930s to present day. Until next time, though,

I've been Corey, and this has been John and Dylan. We're the Smart Avengers, and we hope that you enjoy yourself. We hope that you leave comments under Limbiscuit music videos, as we've instructed you to. Dylan is your YouTube page ready to go. No. But I'm going to be recording stuff next week. So hopefully sometime in July, that's the but this goes up in July. So if you listen to this, maybe second week in July, maybe.

Yeah, I'm going to be recording stuff next week. So maybe go to YouTube.com forward slash ExploddyPlays to watch me play, Pickman, and you'll have a great time. If you go to that URL and there is no Pickman up yet than I haven't rebooted the show yet. The Dylan's a liar.

No, I'm not a liar. I'm lazy. I've started a new show called Large Old Cup. It is about 30 minutes isish an episode. At this time I've only recorded one episode, so ideally there will be like four or five of them. So it's just a stream of consciousness podcast where I'm just kind of talking about whatever comes

to mind or anything interesting has happened. So if you enjoy rambling, links then check that out. John, do you have anything you want to pitch? No. You want to just try? Yeah, make up something. Yeah.

What's your letterbox? I love no exasperated you were that you had to think of something to promote for yourself. I'm going to start a new podcast about comic books. Oh no, we're already doing that. Yeah, I got nothing. Nice. What's your letterbox? So people can keep up with your current viewing habits.

Oh, yes. Do you write reviews or do you just rate? I write small, tiny reviews. But, yeah, you can find them on that box at Big John Bowsky, all one word. And, yeah, that's me. All right, well, that's our side stuff. If you enjoy our nonsense here, you'll enjoy our nonsense. elsewhere and we hope you have a good one goodbye bye

oh that was croaky it's a long one too holy shit