10 Positives Joel Schumacher Actually Brought To Batman Movies

4. Wayne Manor

The home of billionaire Bruce Wayne and his forbears is often seen as a rather haunting and lonely place, often gothic in style. This was precisely how Tim Burton and his respective production designers, Anton Furst and Bo Welch visualised the mansion in Batman and Batman Returns, providing it with a sinister aura.

Joel Schumacher and his production designer, Barbara Ling instead visualised Wayne Manor as one of the grand mansions on Long Island, portrayed by The Webb Institute of Naval Architecture on Long Island, which later featured as Wayne Manor in both Gotham (2014-2019) and Joker (2019). Additionally, in Batman & Robin, Wayne Manor’s grand formal gardens were represented by Greystone Park and Mansion in Los Angeles, itself a popular filming location.

In Schumacher’s version, Wayne Manor is still a lonely place of sorts, seemingly far removed from the mean streets of Gotham City. The sun shines there but emphasises the classic architecture and older qualities of the building that Bruce Wayne wishes to preserve in memory of his parents and what little childhood that he had. It is a haven in both reality and from a psychological perspective, which makes it more shocking when Harvey Two-Face and The Riddler storm the Wayne family homestead in Batman Forever. The building is also not free from the sinuous memory of Poison Ivy, who slinks her way into the mind of George Clooney’s Bruce Wayne there in Batman & Robin, right in the middle of Bruce’s date with Elle Macpherson’s Julie Madison.

However, when Dick Grayson and Alicia Silverstone’s Barbara Wilson come to live at Wayne Manor, they breathe life into the mansion.