20 Things You Didn't Know About Your Favourite Action Movies
18. McDonalds Was Partially Responsible For Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever
During the 90s, the Batman movie franchise underwent a pretty massive change. Following the release of Batman Returns in 1992, Warner Bros. decided to go in a different direction with filmmakers, and wound up replacing Tim Burton with Joel Schumacher for what would end up becoming 1995's Batman Forever. So what exactly happened? Apparently it all had to do with a certain fast food corporation and their dislike of Burton's dark style - specifically Danny DeVito's portrayal of Oswald Cobblepott a.k.a. Penguin. It turns out that people don't want to sit down for a nice juicy hamburger after spending two hours looking at a sewer-dwelling villain with a black mouth. As the director explained to Yahoo:
"I think I upset McDonald's. Whats that black stuff coming out of the Penguins mouth. We cant sell Happy Meals with that!" The director continued: "It was a weird reaction to Batman Returns, because half the people thought it was lighter than the first one and half the people thought it was darker. I think the studio just thought it was too weird they wanted to go with something more child- or family- friendly. In other words, they didnt want me to do another one."
Needless to say, Schumacher took that family-friendly motto to a ridiculous extreme.
Jesse Gumbarge is editor and chief blogger at JarvisCity.com - He loves old-school horror films and starting pointless debates. You can reach out at: JesseGumbarge@JarvisCity.com
