Trivia Thread

[batass4880]

***GOOFS***

When the Penguin is running from the police in the park and he jumps over that bridge, you can see a studio light in the upper-right hand screen. It's right before it cuts to the overhead shot of the cops looking down on the stream. You can only see it on the full-screen version and it's best to watch it on your computer monitor.

[BatmAngelus]

Some things that need correcting on that IMDB site:
"The first draft of this movie was written in 1980 by Superman (1978) co-writer Tom Mankiewicz and told the story of Batman's and Robin's origins.  The villains were The Joker and The Penguin, and Rupert Thorne and Barbara Gordon were also to appear. "
Barbara Gordon was not in the Mankiewicz script.  And The Penguin was cut when Mankiewicz wrote a second draft.

"In the original script with Robin included, the Flying Graysons (John, Mary, and Dick) are introduced at the parade scene. The Joker shoots the trapeze artists sending John and Mary to their deaths and leaving Dick to survive. Dick later becomes Robin in full costume at the end."
Not exactly.  The sequence is more like the animated storyboard one on the DVD.  It doesn't take place at the parade scene, but rather an additional scene that takes place after Joker visits Vicki's apartment.  Joker also doesn't shoot the trapeze artists, but rather crashes into a fireworks truck, which makes them go off right where the Graysons are doing their act.

"The character of Max Shreck was a re-write of District Attorney Harvey Dent; accordingly, most of his plot points would have perhaps made more sense if Shreck were D.A. instead of a corrupt businessman. The explosion at the end of the film was a means to injure Dent and produce the scars that would lead to his transformation into Two-Face for the third movie in the series. Reportedly, Billy Dee Williams took the role of Harvey Dent in the first Batman (1989) movie because he knew that the character would eventually become Two-Face. Williams' contract to appear in the sequel is rumored to have been bought out by Warner Bros. at a heavy price."
The only time I've read the "Shreck was originally Dent" info was from IMDB trivia, which isn't always accurate.
Two things I know for sure about Dent and Batman Returns:
- Some did want to do Two-Face for Batman 2, with Dee Williams.  I do not know why they decided to scrap the idea.  Maybe part of it was how Burton wanted to distance the sequel from the first film?
- As mentioned in the interview with Daniel Waters on this site, there was a draft where Two-Face had a cameo in the film.  He was looking at the ensuing chaos and flips a coin to see if he should join in.  The coin lands on the clean side and he decides to wait.
Personally, I'm glad they didn't have Dent in Shreck's role.

"Marlon Wayans was signed on to play Robin in this movie and Batman Forever (1995) - he even went through costuming for the five minutes that he appeared in the script. But when the script was re-written and Joel Schumacher took over as director, the role went to Chris O'Donnell. Wayans was paid for both movies."
Wayans was attached to Returns, yes.  To Forever?  I don't know.

Some things I learned from my film music class:

Since Danny Elfman's background was from Oingo Boingo, the execs had trouble believing that he wrote this Gothic, orchestral score on his own.  This was partially why Elfman's score was not nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Score.

Prince's contract made it so no other Batman album could be released at the same time as his.  Because of this, Elfman's score CD was released about a month or two after Prince's song album.

Future B:TAS composer Shirley Walker was the orchestrator for the Batman 1989 score, meaning that she often arranged the cues in the film using Elfman's themes.  She also collaborated with future Batman composer Hans Zimmer in other films.

[DarkVengeance]

Cool stuff Angelus, most of it I knew, but not in that detail.

[batass4880]

Some things that need correcting on that IMDB site:
"The first draft of this movie was written in 1980 by Superman (1978) co-writer Tom Mankiewicz and told the story of Batman's and Robin's origins.  The villains were The Joker and The Penguin, and Rupert Thorne and Barbara Gordon were also to appear. "
Barbara Gordon was not in the Mankiewicz script.  And The Penguin was cut when Mankiewicz wrote a second draft.

"In the original script with Robin included, the Flying Graysons (John, Mary, and Dick) are introduced at the parade scene. The Joker shoots the trapeze artists sending John and Mary to their deaths and leaving Dick to survive. Dick later becomes Robin in full costume at the end."
Not exactly.  The sequence is more like the animated storyboard one on the DVD.  It doesn't take place at the parade scene, but rather an additional scene that takes place after Joker visits Vicki's apartment.  Joker also doesn't shoot the trapeze artists, but rather crashes into a fireworks truck, which makes them go off right where the Graysons are doing their act.

I keep hearing from IMDb and Wikipedia that the Joker was originally supposed to kill Vicki right before he and Batman went up the church tower. Where did this come from? I cannot find it in Sam Hamm's nor Warren Skaaren's scripts.

[BatmAngelus]

^ That comes from this article.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/09/28/bfshone28.xml
It's possible that the article got false info, though.

You are right that the death of Vicki is not in the Hamm scripts.  Here are a few possibilities:
- the Telegraph got its information wrong.
- The Telegraph got confused with the first draft of Mankiewicz's script The Batman, in which the love interest, Silver St. Cloud, was killed.  Also, Rupert Thorne kills Silver in the script, not the Joker (plus Silver actually survived in the second, revised draft, so if this is the case, the paper seriously needed to do more research.
- the Telegraph is actually be right. 
The cathedral confrontation in the movie is quite different from any of the ones in the script.  The one in the movie was probably written on set and it's possible that the Joker-kills-Vicki ending was a version they came up with, but then changed their minds to what happened in the final film.

[batass4880]

***89 CONNECTION***

Nick Dudman who designed Jack's Joker make-up, also worked on prosthetic effects for Begins.

Also Vincent Wong, the Chinese crime boss who sat at the mob meeting with Rotelli and Vinnie, played Bruce's cell-mate at the very beginning of Begins.

[DarkVengeance]

***89 CONNECTION***

Nick Dudman who designed Jack's Joker make-up, also worked on prosthetic effects for Begins.

Also Vincent Wong, the Chinese crime boss who sat at the mob meeting with Rotelli and Vinnie, played Bruce's cell-mate at the very beginning of Begins.

thats amazing info right there, didnt know that!

[Seantastic]

I think if Dent was Shreck, it would have made more sense tbh, well, at parts

Plus, heres info about Batfilms which could have been

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Batman Triumphant
During the filming of Batman & Robin, Warner Bros. was impressed with the dailies. This prompted them to immediately hire Joel Schumacher to return as director for a sequel, but writer Akiva Goldsman, who worked on Batman Forever and Batman & Robin with Schumacher, turned down the chance to write the script.[40] In late 1996, Warner Bros. and Schumacher hired Mark Protosevich to write the script for a fifth Batman film. A projected mid-1999 release date was announced.[41] Titled Batman Triumphant, Protosevich's script had the Scarecrow as the main villain. Through the use of his fear toxin, he resurrects the Joker. Harley Quinn appeared as a supporting character, written as the Joker's daughter.[42] George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell were set to reprise the roles of Batman and Robin.[43] However, when Batman & Robin was released with negative reviews, Warner Bros. was unsure of their plans for Batman Triumphant. The studio decided it was best to consider a live-action Batman Beyond film and an adaptation of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One. Warners would then greenlight whichever idea suited them the most.[44] Schumacher felt he "owe[d] the Batman culture a real Batman movie. I would go back to the basics and make a dark portrayal of the Dark Knight."[45] He approached Warner Bros. of doing Batman: Year One in mid-1998.[45]


Batman: DarKnight
Despite Warner Bros. and Schumacher's interest with Year One, Lee Shapiro, a comic book fan, and Stephen Wise pitched the studio with a script titled Batman: DarKnight in mid-1998. DarKnight had Bruce Wayne giving up his crime fighting career and Dick Grayson attending Gotham University.[46] Dr. Jonathan Crane uses his position as professor of psychology at Gotham University and as head psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum to conduct his experiments in fear. During a vengeful confrontation with a colleague, Dr. Kirk Langstrom, Crane unknowingly initiates Kirk's transformation into the creature known as Man-Bat. Citizens of Gotham believe Man-Bat's nightly activities to be Batman's "bloodthirsty" return. Bruce becomes Batman "to clear his name" and solve the mystery of Man-Bat.[46] Kirk struggles with his "man vs. monster" syndrome as he longs to both reunite with his wife and get revenge on Crane, while Crane exacts revenge on those responsible for his dismissal from both Arkham and the university while encountering truths about his past. Warner Bros. decided not to move forward, and passed on Batman: DarKnight in favor of Year One and Batman Beyond.
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Both would have been amazing, plus, sorry about the numbers

[batass4880]

Anyone know why the Cathedral scene in '89 made the movie go over budget? It was always in the script that they were going to end up there anyways, both Hamm's and Skaaren's.

[thecolorsblend]

I didn't know it went overbudget... but if it did, my guess would be that it was so disorganized with writing happening on the set, which likely delayed competion of it.

As for the two proposed B&R follow ups, only the DarKnight thing kinda interested me.  Batman Triumphant always seemed to fanboy'ish to me.  DK sounded kind of interesting though.