10 Shocking Batman Plans You Won’t Believe Almost Happened
3. Tim Burton's Batman Was Almost A Comedy
While we may all now find it easy to imagine Batman as a grim and brooding vigilante, for a long while it was hard for the franchise to shake the bright and cheesy image that the Adam West series cultivated.
Perhaps that explains how schizophrenic the plans were for what would eventually become Tim Burton's Batman movie.
Early versions of the film bounced wildly between camp comedy and serious drama. At one point, Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman was set to direct with Bill Murray as Batman and Eddie Murphy as Robin.
If that sounds crazy (and awesome) then it was nothing compared to the script. It was written by Superman screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz would have included Joker and Penguin as villains.
The tone was all over the place and involved Robin's parents getting killed by a falcon and the revelation that Bruce Wayne was a world NASCAR champion. Batman would also have killed one of the villains, corrupt businessman Rupert Thorne, by pushing him into a giant pencil-sharpener.
Eventually Tim Burton was brought on-board and he managed to give the film a consistent balance between darkness and comedy. One of his unused ideas though was to have Adam West and Julie Newmar as Thomas and Martha Wayne, symbolising the death of the old franchise.