Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin was the death knell for the nineties superhero film renaissance. After getting off to a good start with those Tim Burton movies Warner Bros severely jumped the shark with the incredibly camp, day-glo take on the Dynamic Duo, Bat-Nipples and all. The box office returns weren't too catastrophic but the critical response was, with the weird tone and Arnold Schwarzenegger's quip-heavy villain singled out for particular drubbings. After such a disaster the producers were a little antsy about continuing the franchise, instead opting to go in a completely different direction. Of course eventually they did do that, by finally giving the keys to the Batcave over to Christopher Nolan and allowing him to craft his totally po-faced and "realistic" Dark Knight trilogy, a total 180 from the Schumacher films. Before that, however, they toyed with allowing Darren Aronofsky - visionary director of the likes of Black Swan and Requiem For A Dream - the chance to adapt Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Year One graphic novel to the big screen, making some big changes to Batman's origin story along the way. Like Alfred being a mechanic and the Caped Crusader hanging out in his garage. It would've been a very different Batman, that's for sure.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
