8 Movies Where The Worst Version Got Made

2. Batman Forever

Batman Forever 4K Cover
Warner Bros.

Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever offered a fun, neon-drenched take on Gotham City, but as much as I myself may have a soft spot for it, Val Kilmer's Bruce Wayne and Jim Carrey's endlessly quotable take on the Riddler ("does anyone else feel like a fried egg?"), I'd take a third movie from Tim Burton over it every time.

Burton had begun work on a third Batman film following the release of Batman Returns in 1992, with Michael Keaton once again set to reprise the role of the Caped Crusader. However, the controversy surrounding Returns' dark content mixed with its diminishing box office returns compelled Warner Bros. to take the series in a lighter direction, which saw Burton and Keaton depart the project and Schumacher and Kilmer step in.

It's unclear what direction Burton would have taken the series, given his departure happened so early into Batman Forever's production, but it wouldn't have been a surprise to see the return of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman. Batman and Batman Returns screenwriter Sam Hamm explored the possibility of a third Burton movie with the Batman '89 comic series, which was published by DC Comics in 2021 and featured art from Joe Quinones. The comic explored Burton-esque takes on Robin and Two-Face, with Billy Dee Williams' Harvey Dent getting his villainous turn, and paints a compelling picture for what a third Burton Batman movie could have looked like.

As things stand, Schumacher's Batman Forever is a fine but flawed comic book movie. However, given the cuts made to the film, the brilliance of Burton's previous two movies and the fact that Warner Bros. considered Sam Raimi and John McTiernan for the director's chair as well, it's easy to see how much stronger it could've been.

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Content Producer/Presenter

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.