10 Ways Batman & Robin Changed Batman Movie History

9. It Ended The Possibility Of Schumacher's Arkham Asylum (And Others)

In the wake of Batman & Robin's failure - and though he later said he left the project out of fear that he'd lose his passion for film-making - Joel Schumacher actually had another sequel plan. Batman: DarKnight would have seen Batman face off with Man-Bat and The Scarecrow, and that project got as far as having a script written before it too was pushed aside.

Batman & Robin itself actually replaced Schumacher's original plan to make an Arkham Asylum-set movie - which was set up by the end of Batman Forever - and we could well have seen that idea reborn later in the series had the sequel not tanked.

More importantly, in place of Batman & Robin, Schumacher actually wanted to make The Dark Knight as his second Batman movie, but his desires were quashed by his paymasters:

"I wanted to do a whole other thing, because we had kind of re-invented franchise with Val as Batman and it was a very young, sexy, and much less expensive movie. We brought in Robin and I wanted to make The Dark Knight desperately, but the studio didn't want that and it's their money and they're my bosses."

It's very clear that Schumacher actually had some great ideas for Batman - knowing whether he was ever given full creative licence to turn them into films is what's up for debate. And just imagine how different the Batman universe would have been if we'd got Schumacher's Dark Knight - a sexier, cooler sequel in place of the camp pantomime of Batman & Robin. That would have caused waves.