The Gotham of Returns

[The Dark Knight]

It adds to the intensity with the feeling of everyone being trapped, like they're in a snowglobe or something.

The miniature model town from Beetlejuice.

[The Dark Knight]

I saw this concept art from an unnamed artist and was struck by how stunning it was.



At first I thought it was inaccurate in the depiction of the BR Wayne Manor location. Mainly because never saw a shot like this in the film itself. It was always just the Manor itself and the grounds. I always assumed it was located on flat ground on the outskirts somewhere.

But this artwork doesn't contradict anything we see from Returns. The same objects are there - it's just that the frame has been pulled back to reveal the fuller picture. A gothic version of what we saw in Forever. It makes sense the city is in the background given the whole batsignal retrieval device, and also being near the water with the later use of the batskiboat.

[The Laughing Fish]

Yeah, I remember Furtsmobile posted that concept art four years ago in another thread:
https://www.batman-online.com/forum/index.php?topic=2939.msg42407#msg4240739.0

FM assumed it might've been drawn by an artist called Marty Kline, but I couldn't find that image on his portfolio site anywhere:
http://www.martyklinedesign.com/martyklinedesign/Concepts.html

Still, there is still a lot of great concept art that Kline drew for the film that translated so well in the final product. That image of Wayne Manor overlooking the Batsignal shining in the sky - minus the river and the city landscape - is a good example. Here are a couple of more examples of Kline's BR concept art getting translated on screen.








He did storyboarding for BR too, including the opening credits scene with the infant Penguin floating in the sewers. The scene was nearly translated perfectly on film:
http://www.martyklinedesign.com/martyklinedesign/Storyboards/Pages/Batman_Returns.html

Last but not least, he worked on a bit of concept art for BF too.

[thecolorsblend]

Man, it's really astounding how close some of that art is to the shot(s) used in the film(s). Really serves as a good reminder of what a visual feast BR is. And BF too, I suppose.

[BatmanFurst]

Yeah, I remember Furtsmobile posted that concept art four years ago in another thread:
https://www.batman-online.com/forum/index.php?topic=2939.msg42407#msg4240739.0

FM assumed it might've been drawn by an artist called Marty Kline, but I couldn't find that image on his portfolio site anywhere:
http://www.martyklinedesign.com/martyklinedesign/Concepts.html

Still, there is still a lot of great concept art that Kline drew for the film that translated so well in the final product. That image of Wayne Manor overlooking the Batsignal shining in the sky - minus the river and the city landscape - is a good example. Here are a couple of more examples of Kline's BR concept art getting translated on screen.








He did storyboarding for BR too, including the opening credits scene with the infant Penguin floating in the sewers. The scene was nearly translated perfectly on film:
http://www.martyklinedesign.com/martyklinedesign/Storyboards/Pages/Batman_Returns.html

Last but not least, he worked on a bit of concept art for BF too.

I love the multilayered Bat-Cave he drew for Forever.

[The Laughing Fish]

I found this archived report from Entertainment Weekly, with Tim Burton and set designer Bo Welch talking about constructing Gotham City in BR back in 1992.

Holy wrecking ball, Bat-fans! Where's the Gotham that Michael Keaton motored through in 1989's Batman? You'll hardly recognize the metropolis in Batman Returns, thanks to the revisionist efforts of director Tim Burton and production designer Bo Welch. "I tried not to think of it as a sequel," Burton says. "I treated it like another movie." And Welch, Burton's collaborator on Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, says he viewed the follow-up as "an excuse for an entirely new take."

Judging by the results, the studio gave the pair enormous latitude to exercise their trademark anarchic visual whimsy. (Anton Furst, the designer of Batman who committed suicide last November, was tied up with other projects when Batman Returns began production last summer.) In the movie's retooled burg, you won't see those City Hall steps where Jack Nicholson's Joker stabbed a crime boss. This time the seat of Gotham City's political corruption is a generic "Government Building," the focal point of oppressively overbuilt Gotham Plaza. And while the Joker didn't have much of a lair to rant in — just a couple of dim-looking rooms, really — the Penguin (Danny DeVito) waddles around two enormous fanciful settings: an abandoned, subterranean zoo-pavilion hideout and the grounds above it.

For Penguin's watery underground digs, Welch at first tried to get by with a standard 35-foot-high soundstage on the Warner lot. "The space just lacked majesty," he says. "It didn't contrast enough with this evil, filthy little bug of a man." Instead, Welch assembled an aquatic spectacular on a 50-foot-high Universal soundstage, cramming in a vaulted ceiling. "The ceiling really sells it," he enthuses. "It gives you a sense of enclosure that says, 'Not a set."'

Except for a few blocks of cityscape built for the Batmobile to rip through, Welch's wintertime Gotham was also an indoor creation. Striving for a dehumanizingly vast scale, he reserved Warner's biggest soundstage for Gotham Plaza. "There were hundreds of carpenters scurrying all over," Welch says. "At quitting time, they'd pour out like guys from some '40s aircraft plant." Some of Burton's most sweeping visual ideas — like a crane shot that travels from the base of the department store owned by evil Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) to its cat-head-crowned penthouse office — also required coordination with elaborate miniatures.

Around the ambitious production, the studio spun a web of super-tight security. Art directors were required to keep their office blinds pulled down. And in what Welch calls a "ridiculous gestapo measure," cast and crew had to have photo ID badges with the movie's bogus working title, Dictel, to get anywhere near the sets.

"Dictel is a name Tim and I made up on Edward Scissorhands," Welch says. "It's Dictel as in dictatorial. It was our word to represent a kind of faithless, huge corporation that makes some useless little product and bullies people." He says the crew dubbed one of Gotham Plaza's ugliest, most monolithic skyscrapers the Dictel Building, because it was "particularly fascist-looking."

Echoes of fascist sculpture and architecture reverberate all through the new Gotham Plaza, which Welch designed as a "demented caricature" of New York's Rockefeller Center. One element of the set Burton was anxious to keep — a bizarrely ornamented cathedral dwarfed by commercial buildings around it — aroused the scrutiny of Warner's budgeting staff. "The studio always looks for things to eliminate, and right away they said, 'Whoa, what's this church?"' Welch recalls. "It was expensive because of all the sculpture, and it doesn't figure in the action. But Tim agreed with me that the plaza would be boring if we didn't have that small, insanely detailed area to contrast with those big blank walls." It's that kind of scenic obsession that helps make Batman Returns such a dense, absorbing experience for viewers — and that made the production an uphill battle for studio accountants.

Source: https://ew.com/article/1992/06/19/designing-set-batman-returns/

This goes to show that back in his heyday, Burton would try to reinvent something, instead of retreading old ground. Literally, that's what he did to Gotham City in BR. It's a sentiment that's shared by all the production designers who worked on the film, as you can see in the DVD special edition featurette right down below.

Filming this movie during the summer definitely sounds extremely difficult, trying to maintain the winter conditions carefully and all.

[thecolorsblend]

Is that the bat-missile there? Interesting. I missed that the first time around. Really does more to tie BF to BR. Then again, it could be the BF Batmobile. Tough to say.

[johnnygobbs]

Filming this movie during the summer definitely sounds extremely difficult, trying to maintain the winter conditions carefully and all.

Batman Returns was in fact shot during the following period: 3 September 1991 - 20 February 1992

That said, being in L.A., even during the middle of winter 1991, it's quite clear that the temperatures would not have been anywhere near close to sub-arctic ones required to create a wintry Gotham that could house an army of penguins.

[The Laughing Fish]

Is that the bat-missile there? Interesting. I missed that the first time around. Really does more to tie BF to BR. Then again, it could be the BF Batmobile. Tough to say.

I suppose I can see the logic in suggesting Kline may have toyed with the idea of Batman taking what was left of the Furstmobile, and converted it into the new Batmobile with the necessary changes made to the chassis.

The Batmissile's exhaust is much smaller compared to the BF Batmobile, and would have to get a replacement to resemble the image above.





Plus, the Batmissile's canopy is small, whereas the Batmobile in the concept art is much bigger.

That all being said, the concept art for the Batmissile and BF Batmobile weren't made by Kline - he only drew a car for that particular image of what he envisioned what the BF Batcave might've looked like. The two vehicles were designed by Tim Flattery, and I read some where Jacques Rey was a key collaborator for the Batmissile.

http://www.timflattery.com/work/batman/

[The Laughing Fish]

I found a few more storyboards of key sequences and how they compare to the final cut.

The first one is this very rare sketch of the Penguin addressing his army, drawn by Richard Edlund. Unsurprisingly, this storyboard has now been sold on PropStore.com.

Acquired from the collection of esteemed VFX co-ordinator Richard Edlund, this hand-drawn storyboard was used to help visualise the effects for the scene in which the Penguin rallies his avian allies to destroy the entire city with a rousing speech. Drawn in pencil and black marker on tracing paper, the storyboard shows the Penguin from behind, lit by a spotlight, as the army of penguins look on at their master.

The storyboard is marked as shot 197.1 and has production stamps for "Batman II" and Boss Films, the company responsible for much of the film's visual effects. The storyboard is dated October 31 1991. The caption "Spotlight On Penguin" is written below the image, with "Water Ripple Lighting FX" on the right hand side.

Source: https://propstore.com/mobile/product/batman-returns/penguin-danny-devito-pencil-storyboard-display/

The second is the sequence of Selina Kyle getting pushed out of the window by Max Shreck, as her body crashes through the Shreck cat logo flags and she falls to her death. This drawn by Michael Anthony Jackson.



As you can see, the angles are mostly accurate. The only difference is the storyboard shows one zoomed-out shot of Selina as she hits the first flag and she momentarily turns her head. Whereas the final cut sequence shows her body jolting as she hits each flag at a time before hitting the ground.

Source: http://filmsketchr.blogspot.com/2019/12/great-batman-returns-1992-storyboards.html

Finally, as we already spoke about the Batsignal shining above Wayne Manor, I combined the artwork and the shot together for fun. Aside from the river and how it overlooks Gotham City, it's quite accurate.



Tim Burton and his production team really had a vision back in the day.