With a passing of Joel Schumacher, he left behind a legacy for 2 Batman films. Sadly Batman & Robin was a major flop. I was thinking had it been successful, there would’ve been Batman 5, directed by Schumacher, the villain would have been The Scarecrow and (Not kidding) Harley Quinn, Joker’s daughter. Jack Nicholson may have return to play the Joker!
I’m almost sorry that this movie was never made, do you guys think Batman 5 would’ve been a good movie if it was given a chance?
I want to be respectful and give the unseen 5th movie the benefit of the doubt, but I just can’t imagine it would have been good. Schumacher’s Batman films were just bad.
They were eyeing Madonna for HQ and Howard Stern for Scarecrow. I’m fine that it never happened. I will say that Schumaker was a fantastic director and could have made that a good film…but McDonald and Toy Biz would have been calling the shots anyway.
If Batman and Robin had been a runaway success, we never would have gotten Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. But since it bombed, the studio was forced to take a step back and rethink the way they were doing things.
So last night I rewatched Batman Forever (Schumacher’s passing got me thinking about it) and I actually think it’s pretty fun. Yes it’s ridiculous and over the top, but I kinda enjoy having a Batman movie that’s goofy and colourful and doesn’t take itself seriously. It could have been more interesting if some of the rumoured casting had happened (Robin Williams as Riddler, Billy Dee Williams returning as Harvey Dent, any other actor as Dick Grayson), but I think there’s a place for this kind of Batman movie alongside Tim Burton’s dark fairy tale and Christopher Nolan’s gritty realism.
All that being said, Batman & Robin took the goofiness too far and I doubt a third Schumacher film would have dialed it back so I vote no on continuing the Burton/Schumacher Batverse with a fifth film.
With all these comic adaptations of various drafts of scripts these days, I’d love to see them give us some sort adaptation of the unused Batman 5 script/treatment.
I’m glad McDonald wasn’t part of the Dark Knight trilogy!
As you can see I purposely was trying to stay away from the Dark Knight series, don’t get me wrong, I really love the series, so I wanted to give this a chance just for fun.
@Reaganfan78 I didn’t appreciate the movies for what they were until years later. If you go into them knowing that you’re watching a stylized Batman 66 with a much larger budget, they’re not bad. All the stuff I hated just becomes fun camp. With that thinking in mind, another film to close out that run of films would have been fine.
What’s interesting is, IIRC, at one point FAIRLY recently, Schumacher was talking to DC about releasing graphic novels based on his original visions of Forever and B&R, as well as Triumphant, but I guess that fell through?
The fourth movie left such a sour taste in peoples mouths. Thats why Batman wasn’t in a live action movies for ten years after Batman Forever. I could only imagine that a fifth would’ve hurt the Batman franchise even more.
We had a batmobile with what was essentially liquid metal armor. A bat-boat that perfectly fit in the sewers (how’d it get there?). There’s the magical cape that turns from fabric to glider and back again. A Catwoman with literally nine lives. A radar that shows the exact shape (penguins) of objects. CDs that can be manipulated like a vinyl record. A duckmobile. Mini batmobile driving simulator. Penguins with bombs.
That’s still my favorite Batman movie, but it is pretty cheesy.
I don’t feel Forever was substantially cheesier. Plus, at least Forever didn’t feature a Bat Credit Card, suits with built in ice skates, or silver snow suits.
I actually prefer Batman and Robin to Batman Forever, the final showdown of Batman and Robin is fun also I like to pretend Batgirl is Stephanie Brown and Robin is Tim Drake
