Batman & Robin (film)

With the box office success of Batman Forever in June 1995, Warner Bros. immediately commissioned a sequel.[6] They hired director Joel Schumacher and writer Akiva Goldsman to reprise their duties the following August[7] and decided it was best to fast-track production for a June 1997 target release date, which is a break from the usual three-year gap between films.[6] Schumacher wanted to pay homage to both the broad camp style of the 1960s television series and the work of Batman comic book artist Dick Sprang.[8] The storyline of Batman & Robin was conceived by Schumacher and Goldsman during pre-production on A Time to Kill.[9] Portions of Mr. Freeze's backstory were based on the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Heart of Ice", written by Paul Dini.[10] Goldsman, however, expressed concerns about the script during pre-production discussions with Schumacher.[1] Schumacher stated that he was given the mandate by the studio to make the film more toyetic, even when compared to Batman Forever.[7] The studio reportedly included toy companies in pre-production meetings;[11] Mr. Freeze's blaster was specifically designed by toy manufacturers.[12] Batman creator Bob Kane acted as an official consultant and was heavily involved in the production, giving input on the film's script as well as on set.[13]

Concept art for the film.

While Chris O'Donnell reprises the role of Robin, Val Kilmer decided not to reprise the role of Batman from Batman Forever. Schumacher admitted that he had difficulty working with Kilmer on Forever. "He sort of quit," Schumacher said, "and we sort of fired him."[14] Schumacher would later go on to say that Kilmer wanted to work on The Island of Dr. Moreau because Marlon Brando was cast in the film.[1] Kilmer said that he was not aware of the fast-track production and was already committed to The Saint.[7] David Duchovny stated he was considered for the role of Batman, joking that the reason why he was not chosen was because his nose was too big.[15] George Clooney's casting as Batman was suggested by Warner Bros. executive Bob Daly.[1] Schumacher originally had interest in casting William Baldwin in Kilmer's place, but chose Clooney after seeing his performance in From Dusk till Dawn. Schumacher felt that Clooney "brought a real humanity and humor to the piece, an accessibility that I don't think anybody else has been able to offer" and that he strongly resembled the character from the comic books.[16] Schumacher also believed that Clooney could provide a lighter interpretation of the character than Kilmer and Michael Keaton.[17] As a consequence of time constraints, the costume department repurposed the costume worn by Val Kilmer in Batman Forever for the third act of the film.[18]

Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, and Patrick Stewart were considered for the role of Mr. Freeze,[19][20] before the script was rewritten to accommodate Arnold Schwarzenegger's casting.[21] Schumacher later denied that Stewart was ever considered.[1] Schumacher decided that Mr. Freeze had to be "big and strong like he was chiseled out of a glacier". Mr. Freeze's armor was made by armorer Terry English, who estimated that the costume cost some $1.5 million to develop and make.[7] To prepare for the role, Schwarzenegger wore a bald cap after declining to shave his head, wore a blue LED in his mouth, and had acrylic paint applied. The blue LEDs had to be wrapped in balloons after battery acid started leaking into Schwarzenegger's mouth.[1] His prosthetic makeup and wardrobe took six hours to apply each day.[22] The extensive time spent on Schwarzenegger's costume significantly restricted his shooting time as his contract was limited to 12 work hours a day.[1] Schwarzenegger was paid a $25 million salary for the role.[23][24] Beside Uma Thurman, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, and Julia Roberts were considered for the role of Poison Ivy.[19][20] Schumacher first became aware of Thurman through an earlier role as Venus in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Thurman ultimately took the role of Poison Ivy because she liked the femme fatale characterization of the character.[7] Alicia Silverstone was the only choice for the role of Batgirl.[19] Prior to filming, she was reported to have lost at least 10 pounds for the role.[25] Silverstone would later recount the body shaming she encountered during promotion of the film.[26]

A display of Arnold Schwarzenegger's costume as Mr. Freeze.

Principal photography was set to commence in August 1996,[14] but did not begin until September 12, 1996.[27] Batman & Robin finished filming in late January 1997,[28] two weeks ahead of the shooting schedule.[8] The shooting schedule allowed Clooney to simultaneously work on the television series ER without any scheduling conflicts.[8] O'Donnell said that despite spending a lot of time with Schwarzenegger off of set and during promotion for the film, they did not work a single day together during production; this was achieved by using stand-ins when one of the actors was unavailable.[7] Stunt coordinator Alex Field taught Silverstone to ride a motorcycle so that she could play Batgirl.[29] Filming was temporarily halted in the fall of 1996 when Mr. Freeze's blaster prop disappeared from the film set; a police investigation was subsequently opened, culminating in the raid of a film memorabilia collector's home.[30] High public interested in the film caused security issues on set; According to producer Peter MacGregor-Scott, paparazzi regularly disrupted the set, and photographs of Schwarzenegger taken during filming sold for $10,000.[1]

When comparing work on Batman Forever, O'Donnell explained that "things felt much sharper and more focused, and it just felt like everything got a little softer on the second one. The first one, I felt like I was making a movie. The second one, I felt like I was making a toy commercial."[7] He also complained about the Robin costume, saying that it was more involved and less comfortable than the one that he wore in Batman Forever, with a glued-on mask that caused sweat to pool on his face.[29] According to John Glover, who played Dr. Jason Woodrue, "Joel [Schumacher] would sit on a crane with a megaphone and yell before each take, 'Remember, everyone, this is a cartoon'. It was hard to act because that kind of set the tone for the film."[7] Several different stund doubles were used for the roles of Batman, Robin, and Mr. Freeze, some specialized in ice skating, areal gymnastics, and driving.[1]

The film was mostly shot at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California.[7] The grounds of Greystone Mansion were used for scenes taking place at Wayne Manor.[31] Production designer Barbara Ling stated that her influences for the design of Gotham City came from "neon-ridden Tokyo and the Machine Age. Gotham is like a World's fair on ecstasy."[32] Although miniatures and computer-generated elements were used for some scenes, large full-scale sets were constructed, including Gotham City covered in ice. For scenes featuring people frozen by Mr. Freeze's ice-ray, life-sized mannequins covered in fake ice were created.[18] Several different materials were tested for the féaux ice before settling on a combination of fiber resin. According to Ling, the ice effects alone took half a year to create.[13] Rhythm and Hues and Pacific Data Images created the visual effects sequences, with John Dykstra and Andrew Adamson credited as the visual effects supervisors.[33] Batman & Robin featured 450 individual visual effects shots, 150 more than Batman Forever. Motion capture was used to animate digital stunt doubles; for a scene featuring skysurfing, the department recorded the motion of an actual skyboarder in a wind tunnel at a military base in North Carolina.[13]

The theatrical trailer for Batman & Robin debuted on the February 19, 1997, episode of Entertainment Tonight.[47] Warner Bros. spent $125 million to market and promote the film,[48] in addition to its $160 million production budget.[2][3] Several Six Flags amusement parks introduced new roller coasters themed to the film. Batman & Robin: The Chiller opened at Six Flags Great Adventure in 1997, and a Mr. Freeze-themed roller coaster opened at both Six Flags Over Texas and Six Flags St. Louis in 1998.[7] Taco Bell launched a $20 million promotional campaign for the film, selling Batman-themed cups, collector toys, and figurines.[49] Themed trading cards produced by Fleer and SkyBox International were also sold, some signed by Clooney, Schwarzenegger, Thurman, Silverstone, O'Donnell, and Schumacher.[50] An eponymous tie-in video game developed by Probe Entertainment was released for the PlayStation on August 5, 1998, to mixed reviews.[51][52]

Batman & Robin was released on June 20, 1997 in the United States and Canada grossing $42,872,605 in its opening weekend,[4] making it the third-highest opening weekend gross of 1997, behind Men in Black and The Lost World: Jurassic Park.[53] The film would hold the record for the highest opening weekend for an Arnold Schwarzenegger film until it was surpassed by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003.[54] The film's opening weekend gross also remained George Clooney's highest until the release of Gravity in 2013.[55] Batman & Robin declined by 63% in its second week,[56] which was credited to poor word of mouth and early competition with Face/Off, Hercules, and Men in Black.[57] In the UK, it had the second-highest opening ever with a gross of £4,940,566 ($8.2 million) for the weekend.[58]

The film went on to gross $107.3 million in the United States and Canada and $130.9 million internationally, coming to a worldwide total of $238.2 million,[4] marking it the ninth-highest grossing film of 1997[59] as well as the lowest-grossing live-action Batman film to date.[60] With a production budget of $125–160 million,[1][2][3] the film was estimated to at least break even.[61] Schumacher criticized "prejudicial prerelease buzz" online and false news reports as a cause for the film's poor commercial performance.[62] Warner Bros. acknowledged Batman & Robin's shortcomings in the domestic market but pointed out its success in other markets.[57] In his book Batman: the Complete History, Les Daniels analyzed the film's relatively strong performance outside of the United States, speculating that "nuances of languages or personality were likely to be lost in translation and admittedly eye-popping spectacle seemed sufficient."[63]

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Batman & Robin has an approval rating of 12%, based on 93 reviews, with an average rating of 3.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Joel Schumacher's tongue-in-cheek attitude hits an unbearable limit in Batman & Robin, resulting in a frantic and mindless movie that's too jokey to care much for."[64] On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 28 out of 100, based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[65] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[66]

Jay Boyar of Orlando Sentinel believed Batman & Robin to be the least distinctive chapter in the series, calling it a "bat-smorgasbord of action, camp, pathos, spectacle and whatever" and blaming its blandness on the studio's increased involvement in its production.[67] In his "thumbs down" review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times found the film to be "wonderful to look at" although it had "nothing authentic at its core", criticizing its toyetic approach.[68] Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Gene Siskel, who gave positive reviews to the previous Batman films, also gave Batman & Robin a "thumbs down" rating, calling it a "sniggering, exhausting, overproduced extravaganza".[69] While commending the film's visuals, Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called the film "indifferently acted" and "far too slick for even a toehold's worth of connection", believing that it "killed" the Batman film series.[70] Desson Howe of The Washington Post disapproved of Schumacher's direction and Akiva Goldsman's script, calling it an "emptily flashy, meandering fashion show of a summer flick" and also believing that it should mark the end to the series.[71] Andrew Johnston, writing in Time Out, remarked, "It's hard to tell who B&R is intended for. Anyone who knows the character from the comics or the superb animated show on Fox will be alienated. And though Schumacher treats the Adam West version as gospel, that show's campy humor is completely incompatible with these production values."[72] James Berardinelli questioned the "random amount of rubber nipples and camera angle close-ups of the Dynamic Duo's butts and Bat-crotches".[73]

In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle said that the film failed to "convincingly inhabit the grandeur of its art direction and special effects", criticizing George Clooney as "the big zero of the film", who "should go down in history as the George Lazenby of the series".[74] While deeming Clooney "the most ideal Batman to date" in a physical sense, Todd McCarthy of Variety found the character uninteresting and Clooney "unable to compensate onscreen for the lack of dimension on paper". Conversely, he described Thurman and Schwarzenegger's performances as the villainous duo as the "highlights of the film", pointing out Thurman's "comic wit conspicuously lacking elsewhere in the picture".[75] Writing for Star Tribune, Jeff Strickler criticized its "almost embarrassingly mundane" dialogue and called Schwarzenegger "wasted" in the role of Mr. Freeze and his character "drably written".[76] Janet Maslin of The New York Times gave a more positive review and praised Thurman's performance as "perfect", comparing it to Mae West's "[mix of] true femininity with the winking womanliness of a drag queen", but criticizing Silverstone and Clooney's performances.[77] Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer found Thurman at times "amusing" and similarly described her performance as "Mae West with moss".[78]

Batman & Robin is considered to be one of the worst superhero films[79] and among the worst films ever made.[80][81] In 2009, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said that Batman & Robin may be the most important comic book film ever made in that it was "so bad that it demanded a new way of doing things" and created the opportunity to make X-Men and Spider-Man in a way that respected the source material to a higher degree.[82] In an interview with Vice 20 years after its release, director Joel Schumacher apologized for the film while taking full responsibility for its poor reputation, stating, "I want to apologize to every fan that was disappointed because I think I owe them that. A lot of it was my choice. No one is responsible for my mistakes but me." He added, "I was scum. It was like I had murdered a baby", recounting his initial reaction to the overwhelmingly negative public response.[83][84] Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman also apologized, saying, "we didn't mean for it to be bad. I swear, nobody was like, 'This will be bad.'" and elaborating that the film was initially intended to be darker in tone.[85]

A person cosplaying as Mr. Freeze as depicted in Batman & Robin.

Retrospectively, George Clooney has spoken critically of and apologized for his involvement in the film, saying in 2005, "I think we might have killed the franchise",[86] and calling it "a waste of money".[2] In 2015, while promoting Disney's Tomorrowland at New York Comic-Con, Clooney said that he had met former Batman actor Adam West and apologized to him for the film.[79] Furthermore, when asked during a 2015 interview on The Graham Norton Show about whether he had ever had to apologize for Batman & Robin, Clooney responded, "I always apologize for Batman & Robin".[87] Conversely, in an interview with Empire in 2012, Arnold Schwarzenegger stated that, despite its poor reception, he did not regret making the film, commenting about his role as Mr. Freeze and his involvement with the studio, "I felt that the character was interesting and two movies before that one Joel Schumacher was at his height. So the decision-making process was not off. At the same time I was doing Eraser over there and Warner Bros. begged me to do the movie."[88] Similarly, 25 years after its theatrical release, Uma Thurman described her work on the film as a "fantastic experience".[89]

The nipples seen on the character's costumes, first appearing in Batman Forever and accentuated for Batman & Robin at Schumacher's request, remain among the most defining aspects of the film.[90] Recounting his involvement with the film, costume designer Jose Fernandez stated that he was opposed to "sharpening" the nipples, calling them "ridiculous".[91] In 2022, Tim Burton commented about Warner Bros.' decision to replace him as director with Schumacher after Batman Returns, "You complain about me, I’m too weird, I’m too dark, and then you put nipples on the costume? Go fuck yourself."[92] In the 2009 film Watchmen, director Zack Snyder and comic book artist Dave Gibbons chose to parody the molded muscle and nipple Batsuit design from Batman & Robin for the Ozymandias costume.[93][94] The film is referenced in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Legends of the Dark Mite!", when Bat-Mite briefly uses his powers to transform Batman's costume into the same suit shown in Schumacher's Batman films, before declaring it "too icky".[95] George Clooney's screen-worn suit was put up for auction by Heritage Auctions in 2022 with a starting bid of $40,000.[96] A previous owner had estimated it to be worth $100,000 in 2006 when Clooney was at the height of his career.[97] The suit would go on to sell for $57,500.[98]