One of my personal movie highlights of the year was the return of MY Batman, Micheal Keaton in the much better-than-they’d-have-you-believe, Flash movie earlier this year.
As someone who credits the original 1989 Batman movie as being the one that formed and created my love of cinema and comic books as an impressionable 12-year-old boy and having him back some 34 years later? Well, it was something I dreamed of ever since I left the cinema after Batman Returns in 1992 and when it happened, it was fun and it made me very nostalgic and, frankly, I adored it.
But it seems that Tim Burton, left, director of Batman and Batman Returns, wasn’t as enamored with the whole thing.
In a new interview, Burton talks about Keaton’s return and, not just that, but the fact that we finally get Nicholas Cage’s Superman after Burton Developed Superman Lives with Cage in the early 90s and it came close enough to happening that the script and costume are common knowledge among fans so, while that movie never happened, in the wide DC cinematic universe, that Superman very much exists.
“I don’t have regrets,” Burton says when asked if he’s sorry Superman Lives never happened, “I will say this: when you work that long on a project and it doesn’t happen, it affects you for the rest of your life. Because you get passionate about things, and each thing is an unknown journey, and it wasn’t there yet. But it’s one of those experiences that never leaves you, a little bit.”
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He goes on to refer to the appearance of Keaton and Cage in The Flash, saying: “I think I’m over it with the studio. They can take what you did, Batman or whatever, and culturally misappropriate it, or whatever you want to call it. Even though you’re a slave of Disney or Warner Brothers, they can do whatever they want. So in my latter years of life, I’m in quiet revolt against all this.”
It’s very understandable that he feels this way about the characters he developed and created – in those interpretations at least – but we know that Keaton seemed happy to be back and it’s hard to imagine that Cage, a life-long Superman fan, wasn’t happy to finally get that S on his chest; indeed with the Batman ’89 comic coming back for a second outing later this year and Keaton very nearly getting his own Batman Beyond movie, it seems that maybe Burton should take at least a little comfort in knowing that his work is loved by fans and will always be welcomed back.
What say you all?
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FIRST LOOK: Keaton and Reeve return as Batman ’89 and Superman ’78 in new comic sequels
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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