Adam West's Batman Almost Had a Crossover Film with Godzilla Titled BATMAN MEETS GODZILLA
Here’s a fun piece of Batman movie trivia that was recently pointed out to me that I thought was cool! In the 1960s, Adam West’s Batman almost got a crossover film with Godzilla! The movie was titled Batman Meets Godzilla, and it’s one of those unproduced movies that I wish we would have seen get made!
The film was written around the same time that the Batman series premiered on ABC in 1966. There were two treatments that were actually written for the project before it was dropped, and only one of those treatments was saved and archived.
There was an American treatment written by William Dozier that is apparently being held in the University of Wyoming. The other treatment was a Japanese version written by Shinichi Sekizawa, but no one knows where that one is.
As a fan of both Batman and Godzilla, it would have been really cool to see this movie made. There’s no doubt it would have been an all-time classic. As for what the story would have entailed, the following details were found on Lost Media from the treatment written by William Dozier:
Commissioner Gordon and his daughter, Barbara are on vacation aboard a cruise ship in the Far East. Commissioner is on the trip so he can scout "police facilities in the Orient", and Barbara is coming so she can reunite with her old college friend, Reiko Hammamoto. Everything is going well until an enormous tidal wave falls over the ship and capsizes it. The giant wave turns out to be the work of Klaus Finster, a German meteorologist who moved to Japan. In his secret lair (hidden under Mount Fuji), Klaus claims that he has control of the entire weather, and will destroy Japan unless he is given 20 million dollars in gold. Gordon decides that there is only one way to stop Klaus from destroying Japan: calling Batman and Robin.
It turns out that Finster doesn't control the weather; however, he instead controls Godzilla. When he learns that Batman and Robin are coming to stop his evil plans, he flicks a switch that allows Godzilla to escape and start rampaging Japan. Finster also creates an android clone of Count Draidl (a friend of Batman) to fight the duo. After the android Draidl is defeated, Batman and Robin run into Commissioner Gordon and the Japanese cops. Batman thinks Godzilla is involved in the destruction of the city, so they watch a few clips of Godzilla vs. King Kong, confirming that Godzilla's behind the destruction.
Batman and Robin decide to wait before going to defeat Finster, and Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson get into trouble. A "Kabuki" show turns into sword-fighting chaos after the actors on-set ambush the duo. Reiko Hammamoto ends up getting decapitated in the chaos (but ends up being a robot built by Finster). After escaping, the hero duo decide to meet and fight with Klaus, but end up in a car chase that includes a taxi torture chamber slowly filling up with toxic gas. The heroes almost suffocate before Barbara as Batgirl arrives to melt the taxi door.
Batman finds Godzilla in Takada, and his report on this helps him earn the Japanese government's trust. They then follow Godzilla to Osaka, and build a machine that recreates a mating call for Godzilla. The trio drives to the overpass to block Godzilla's way. Once they're there, they battle Finster, who slips off the building and falls to his demise. During the fight, Godzilla grabs Batgirl, so Batman activates the Godzilla mating call, and it causes him to throw Batgirl far away. Batman climbs up Godzilla and straps an explosive to his back, causing him to fly all the way up into orbit.
I love that! If you want to read the original treatment, you can check that out here. I wonder how audiences would’ve reacted to this movie had it been made.
