Joel Schumacher Apologizes For BATMAN & ROBIN But Doesn't Regret The Bat Nipples
Back in the 90s, I remember how excited I was to see Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, but damn... that movie turned out to be a big giant turd sandwich! It's gotta be one of the worst superhero films ever made. After seeing the awesome Tim Burton Batman films, I couldn't understand why the studio would allow something like Batman & Robin.
Well, as we get closer to the 20th anniversary of the film that became famous for its bat nipples, the director recently talked to Vice about his movie, and he apologized to the fans who didn't like it saying:
“Look, I apologize. I want to apologize to every fan that was disappointed because I think I owe them that.”
He also went on to explain why he put those silly-ass nipples on Batman's suit that led to him creating those infamous rubber nipples. In regards to those rubber nipples, they are something that he's not sorry for. He thought they were cool! He explains:
"[The costume] was made by Jose Fernandez, who was our brilliant lead sculptor. If you look at Batman and Batman Returns, it was the genius, Bob Ringwood that created those suits, so by the time we got to Batman Forever, the rubber and techniques had gotten so sophisticated. If you look at when Michael Keaton appears in the first suit, you’ll notice how large it is. It was brilliant but the best they could do at the time. By the time Batman Forever came around, rubber molding had become so much more advanced. So I said, let’s make it anatomical and gave photos of those Greek status and those incredible anatomical drawings you see in medical books. He did the nipples and when I looked at them, I thought, that’s cool."
I can see his reasoning behind his approach to the suit design, but it was still a bad idea because those nipples looked awful on the Batman suits. He never thought that decision would haunt him over the past 20 years. He says he's glad he did it, though.
Schumacher went on to reveal that he never even wanted to make the sequel Batman Forever. The studio basically pressured him into it. The studio loved all the money they were making off of Batman merchandise!
"You know, I just knew not to do a sequel. If you get lucky, walk away. But everybody at Warner Brothers just expected me to do one. Maybe it was some hubris on my part. I had a batting average of 1,000, so I went from falling down a bit after Lost Boys, to a kind of a genius with The Client, a big blockbuster with Batman Forever, then had great reviews with A Time to Kill, so my batting average was good. I never planned on being, that dreadful quote, “a blockbuster king” because my other films were much smaller and had just found success with the audience and not often with the critics, which is really why we wrote them. And then after Batman & Robin, I was scum. It was like I had murdered a baby."
For the most part, I've enjoyed most of the films that Schumacher has made in his career. But his Batman films are definitely not a high point in his career. I'm curious to know, are any of you fans of Schumacher's Batman films?