Of all the Batman movies, Tim Burton's original feature perhaps went through the most alterations during pre-production. One draft famously featured Robin, who was meant to be played by Marlon Wayans, who himself was meant to appear in both Batman Returns and Batman Forever, only to be replaced by Chris O'Donnell midway through production.
Before Wayans' involvement with the project, young actor Ricky Addison Reed was actually considered for the part, who had only recently starred in A Return to Salem's Lot.
In light of that, Burton actually storyboarded a sequence where the character of Robin would be introduced. Years later, Batman: The Animated Series actors Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill (who played the Dark Knight and Joker respectively), actually voiced the storyboard too - granting a level of authenticity to the scene that never really was, and providing us all with a look into what could've been a very different Batman movie.
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Quiz: How Well Do You Remember Batman 1989 30 Years Later?
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1. "The Bat" Alledgedly Threw This Criminal 5 Stories To His Death, & Drained His Blood.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
