Batman & Robin - What Happened?

[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome back to another episode of what happened if you look down at the title below you'll see batman and robin and go crap wait rich no parents man movie has already been out in theaters for more than a week i forgot to take advantage of the eldritch power of algorithmic synergy yes let's just do it now who cares and no this isn't about the equally awful playstation game of the same name god there are so many batman games i can still cover i i already did dark tomorrow there's batman forever batman beyond and oh by the way quick shout out to the bitmap books latest release go straight a fantastic comprehensive tome that catalogs every beat-em-up you can even think of guess even those aforementioned piles of bat crap but the good ones too it's available now in limited quantities so check the description below for more info anyway batman's movie career has also had the occasional misstep and really there's none bigger than today's subject so what happened to batman and robin all right everyone chill it's 1995 and warner brothers gamble to continue the batman film franchise without tim burton is paying off big time while choices like jim carrey as the main antagonist and a mid-series bat actor swap were seen as risks batman forever was unquestionably the success of that summer blowing batman returns's box office hall out of the sky and making a decent amount of cash off the massive toy and merch roll out what goes on inside batman's head joel schumacher famous for past cinematic greats like st elmo's fire and the lost boys have been chosen to take up the mantle of director he was genuinely passionate about the source material and immersed himself in all eras of the hero's history after rapping on forever he and then writing partner akiva goldsman jumped immediately into filming a time to kill which led straight into wb producers wanting the duo back on a batman sequel right off the bat things started getting very what happendy wb wanted to fast track the project for a summer 1997 premiere barely two years after forever previously wb had maintained a three-year lead time between batman films but since forever had recovered so well from the less successful batman returns hey it's bad mania let's just all cash in schumacher gathered up the same production crew that he had on forever and started filming in september of 96. goldsmith for his part was nervous about how fast everything was moving and we're just gonna put a pin to this thought for now because it's gonna batarang back around to relevance later on while batman forever was no stranger to merchandising i miss you so much baby there was still money being left on the table thus toy companies were invited to give input early in the creative process so as to figure out how to get that money off the metaphorical table although forever had intentionally been made to be lighter than its tim burton predecessors a change that appeared to have paid off since it handily trounced returns as financials it still delved into bruce's traumas showed dick grayson's entire family getting murked live on stage and even threw a little body [ __ ] in there as a treat for batman and robin logically wb wanted something even more family friendly no pearls hiding the floor no one getting hit with crowbars instead batman would be more cheery and crack jokes in fact everyone would be cracking jokes this time around search up stay cool bird boy i'm a lover not a fighter and you are batgirl that's not awfully pc as for the cast mr freeze and poison ivy were plucked from the rogues gallery and of course because we had two villains last time we gotta one-up that in some way so they took one of batman's most iconic 90s villains bane and put him on goon duty under poison ivy while chris o'donnell returned his robin falcomer's batman was out joel schumacher and iceman famously didn't see eye to eye with each other on set in fact in the hollywood reporter article batman and robin at 20 schumacher said batman forever when we were on the world tour it just really went to his head i'm not going to get into that he wanted to do island of dr moreau because marlon brando was going to be in it so he dropped us at the 11th hour you know to be fair to val he was [ __ ] no matter which of these projects he chose george clooney however was cheap and available so they started molding his cod piece right away for poison ivy schumacher offered the role to uma thurman as he was a huge fan of hers citing a vanity fair photo shoot and her role as venus in the adventures of baron munchausen as motivators to caster robert swenson fresh off a short stint at wcw would be cast as a suitably large bane and finally alicia silverstone of clueless fame was cast as batgirl as schumacher realized there weren't really female superheroes in the film space at this time so this was an attempt to reach out to that audience as for mr freeze joel had said that he had always wanted a big chiseled dude for the part and since he and arnold had been looking for a project together his talents were quickly purchased but they wouldn't come cheap getting the feeling of coming in the gym i'm getting the feeling of coming at home i'm getting the feeling of coming even though his recent films had been seen a bit of a frostier reception he was still the biggest star of the show commanding a cool 25 million dollar salary despite spending only about a month on set i wait wait why didn't you just cast him as bane instead i am paying and i could kill you instead i will simply break you most of the film was shot on wb's back lot in under five months with a few major issues plaguing the production arnold apparently took over four hours to get costumed up with almost two hours of that spent doing a frankly excellent job hiding his hair since he opted to not shave his head his costume also included an array of blue leds in his mouth which at some point started leaking battery acid after interacting with his saliva for long enough the crew knew something was amiss when arnold shouted and i quote what's in my mouth now it tastes like [ __ ] after the device was upgraded to a more mouth-friendly one it still maintained another crippling effect the batteries would only last around 20 minutes and need constant replacing putting arnold out of commission pretty regularly makeup artist jeff dawn recalled arnold is sitting there in this incredibly uncomfortable suit and it's costing us five thousand dollars a minute to wait compounding matters further was a clause in arnold's contract which was a strict 12 hour per day limit if the makeup process took over 4 hours they would need to make up for that time elsewhere one of their solutions was to make multiple less complex suits for stuntmen who could play arnold in wide shots and other less direct angles since his on-set time was so limited only using him for what was absolutely necessary it also didn't help that all these suits cost a pretty penny surprise sloppy costume work was also hampering chris o'donnell who found his new duds less comfortable and harder to act in than what he wore in forever what's more is that his new mask was held in place by glue in such a way that sweat would pull up inside of it ugh nineties sweat since this was her first movie with elaborate stunts alicia's silverstone had to train rigorously and even learned to ride a motorcycle for her role as batgirl unfortunately at the same time she had been getting attacked by the media and privately mocked by staff members of the film cruel gems from the media including things like calling her fat girl on set there were rumors that she was having trouble fitting into her tight costume and she was ridiculed by members of the production for this with storyboard artist tim burgard going so far as to illustrate a fake movie poster for clueless 2 the casting of batgirl this included an unflattering cartoon that nearly got him in trouble because he didn't actually sign it so it remained anonymous at the time he claims it was meant to look like the comic book character and not alicia and that it was a private joke just the guys in the art department to his credit joel schumacher came to her defense by openly scolding the media's treatment of her and admonishing his crew speaking of schumacher he began to begrudge wb's push for the film to be more toyetic than forever characters in the movie world wind up having more gear accessories and suits than ever before such as the extremely arbitrary black and silver costume change that the three heroes undergo towards the end of the film they didn't serve any real function but it did give them an opportunity to make new toys chris o'donnell also felt that this shift hurt the final product in batman forever things felt much sharper and more focused and it just felt like everything got a little softer on the second one the first one felt like i was making a movie the second one i felt like i was making a toy commercial alright i can't dance around it much longer much noise was made over the cod pieces and nipples of batman forever and they came back with a bang in batman and robin i asked for a bigger package apparently chris was tipping the costumer schumacher didn't understand the big issue during production saying they were modeled after the physique of ancient greek or roman statues which were always very superhero like the nipples that was the greatest that was the absolute greatest that those two rubber things the size of a pencil erasers would be a big effing deal even with this mess of private and public issues wb execs were apparently blown away by what they were seeing and i've been really blown away before they'd even seen a rough cut of the whole film they offered schumacher a deal for another sequel as they were so sure this was going to result in another baffle box office more on this later when filming wrapped in january of 97 it was passed directly over to the visual effects team with no possibility of reshoots or pickups given the lack of time available before the pre-ordained release date batman and robin was positioned as the mid-summer tentpole film once again with toys blankets and promotions already starting to roll out taco bell had a contest to win a life-size replica of the batmobile and there was not one but two batman and robin themed roller coasters under construction delays were deemed unacceptable and so on june 20th batman and robin powed and woofed into theaters it quickly became the laughingstock of audiences and critics alike too jokey too hokey and lacking the qualities that made the earlier films resonate with fans forever had at least been a novel fusion of burton and schumacher's sensibilities but batman and robin was something else altogether poor reviews and bad word of mouth were tough enough to deal with but on top of that it also faced some serious competition just a week later with the back to back combo of disney's hercules and the best reviewed movie of the year don't let any other facts tell you otherwise john woo's face off no wait hang on you think that's a joke that i'm bringing out face off face off actually did beat batman and robin at the box office with only half of the production budget that it had let that sink in but its first weekend box office take wasn't a complete disaster with the baton bird pulling in almost 43 million dollars not bad in its own right but it was still 10 million less than forever's first weekend haul from just two years ago you got a real gratitude problem you know that bruce eventually batman and robin would also wind up raking in less overall with its final worldwide tally topping out at just over 238 million compared to forever's stunning 336. if that wasn't enough batman and robin also commanded a budget that was 60 larger than forevers at a whopping 160 mil warner brothers chose to immediately pump the brakes on this runaway batmobile scrapping plans for the fifth film in the saga yeah i didn't stutter now it's time to briefly dip our toes into the sequel that never was akiva goldsman had chosen not to continue his work on the series so schumacher had turned to one mark protocevich to draft the follow-up batman unchained it would have focused on scarecrow as well as harley quinn rewritten to be the joker's daughter and have even featured the return of jack nicholson in that role uh how do you ask through fear gas-induced hallucinations bouncing around inside of bruce's brain i am genuinely sad we never got this because it sounds so goddamn bonkers what's even more bonkers though is that wb also had plans to fast-track this one in the same way as batman and robin as it was set to release only two years later in the summer of 1999. there had even been initial plans to sequel bait into this thing with a cameo at the end of batman and robin apparently schumacher had approached nicholas [ __ ] cage to film a quick scene as jonathan crane aka scarecrow but that obviously and tragically fell through after all was said and done combination rapper actor coolio ended up at the top of the shortlist to play scarecrow which certainly would have been something in the subsequent year since its release schumacher had earnestly owned up to the film's problems in a behind the scenes documentary he expressed the merchandising and licensing became a very very important part of making the film but i also have to say i was an adult i was awake and i went along with it so i'm not pointing a finger at anyone else and saying they made me do this right i was there if there's anybody watching this that let's say love batman forever and went into batman and robin with great anticipation if i've disappointed them in any way i really want to apologize because it wasn't my intention my intention was to just entertain them in 2017 he would reaffirm these sentiments adding akiva was very leery about batman and robin we had a couple of very serious discussions about it and he was right about it in the long run the film did not end his career although he would never make another blockbuster on the same level as batman but he would go on to direct features like 8 millimeter tiger lan phone booth and the number 23 before passing in 2020 a lot of lessons were obviously learned on batman and robin evidently even on the wb side because since its debut each subsequent interpretation of the dark knight seems to double down on out gritting whatever came before riddle me this butt man if quizzes are quizzical then what are tests now some fans still feel that a fun light-hearted take on the character has its own charm and place in the cinematic world never leave the cave without it but those people are wrong if you know of any other bat-tastic blunders let me know in the comments below over on my twitter or break through the skylight of the flophouse vip patreon become a big boss and nominate what you want to see in the future see you next time and thanks for watching [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign

Channel: Matt McMuscles

Views: 347,516

Keywords: Matt McMuscles, Batman & Robin, What Happened?, Wha Happun, Worst Batman Movie, Worst Super Hero Movie, Movie bombs, Batman Movies

Id: u4MlGnPtd7A

Length: 17min 19sec (1039 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 12 2022