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Why did the Batman series fall apart so quickly after the 1989 movie?

posted 4 years ago by TMC-4 (20273)
3 replies | jump to latest

What I mean is, Batman Returns seems to be one of those "you either love it or hate it" type of superhero movies. It was definitely very controversial when it was first out, with parents complaining about how dark, violent, and overtly vulgar and sexual it was compared to the 1989 movie. To add insult to injury, McDonald's had to cancel their Happy Meal tie-in due to all of the controversy.

Batman Forever is really a soft-reboot of the franchise after the first two involving Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, and Danny Elfman. It was clearly meant to steer the franchise in a safer, more marketable territory. Batman Forever is quite frankly, a movie that you could say while not exactly "good", it wasn't at all horrible either. It was really a bridge between the darkness of the two Burton movies and the cheesiness and bright and colorful campiness of Batman & Robin.

What else is there to say about Batman & Robin, other than it killed the franchise until Christopher Nolan got his own trilogy of Batman movies going eight years later? It quite possibly could've killed the superhero movie genre for good until X-Men and Spider-Man (and to a lesser extent, Blade, but I wouldn't exactly consider Blade to be an out and out superhero movie) got it back on track about five years later.

[–] NotoriousRio (12927) 4 years ago

Killing The Joker in the first movie wasn’t a wise move either!

[–] ATG6 (3000) 4 years ago

It didn't exactly fall apart. The first movie was very good. The second had worse villains, but was in the same Burton vein.

Batman Forever was a good movie, with over the top villains and a brooding Batman with an appealing love interest.

Batman and Robin was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. They went all campy, and they didn't even do it well. Bane was a cartoon character, and Arnold was a terrible Mr. Freeze.

[–] contreras (470) 4 years ago

Batman is doomed to rise and fall because its a dark character that also has a huge mainstream appeal. So the most memorable incarnations are the darker and more violent ones, then the character becomes super popular so they market it to kids, toning down the dark elements until it becomes dull again and loses audience. Then the industry loses interest in the franchise and some low profile fanboy team gets to do what they want with it and so on and so on.

It's happened in the comics too.