21 Batman Movies That Almost Happened
18. Return Of The Batman
Strictly speaking, the Return Of The Batman script was never meant to be made, but it was the script that made Batman movies, and undoubtedly warrants mention in the grand history of unproduced Batman projects.
When Uslan was attempting to make his Batman, Hollywood was less than enthused, and he repeatedly came up against boundaries when studios based their expectations of the value of his pitch on the West version of the character:
"Batman is a pot-bellied funny guy with Pows, Zaps, and Whams. Its silliness. And Id tell them No it's not. They couldnt get it. Even when I showed them . And those were the only ones I showed Tim Burton... My biggest fear was that somehow Tim would get hold of the campiest Batman comics and then where would we be?"
In order to get any interest at all, Burton sat down and worked on a script called Return Of The Batman in the late 1970s; not because the project would become the final film, but because it would be used to educate studios and executives on his vision for returning Batman to his origin.
"It really was about ten years before The Dark Knight Returns - it was that sort of approach to it. And that helped me convince a few people in Hollywood what I was trying to accomplish."
Given his background writing Batman comics, it would have been interesting to at least see storyboards for Uslan's film, or at least to see the script released in the interest of historical preservation.