Daniel Waters, the screenwriter behind 1992’s Batman Returns, stated the proposed “Catwoman” spinoff from that movie had two very totally different takes.
Waters spoke throughout a December 22 Los Angeles screening of Batman Returns on the Egyptian Theater.
Director Tim Burton wished “Catwoman” to be an intimate drama shot in black and white to pay tribute to Jacques Tourneur’s iconic 1942 horror movie, Cat Individuals.
Alternatively, Waters wished a satirical take whereby Catwoman strikes to Los Angeles and takes on three corrupt superheroes.
“He wished to do an $18 million black and white film, like the unique ‘Cat Individuals,’ of Selina simply lowkey residing in a small city,” Waters stated. “And I wished to make a ‘Batman’ film the place the metaphor was about ‘Batman.’ So I had her transfer to a Los Angeles model of Gotham Metropolis, and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. It was ‘The Boys’ earlier than ‘The Boys.’ However he received exhausted studying my script.”
Waters additionally spilled that the unique draft of Batman Returns contained a number of digs on the first Burton Batman movie from 1989, which Waters candidly admitted “sucks.”
The movie’s star, Michael Keaton, satisfied Waters to trim the jibes.
“[Michael] Keaton stated, ‘That is very intelligent. Minimize it,’” Waters recalled.
Waters additionally admitted that the modifications to the Batman canon within the movie got here from a scarcity of analysis into Batman. He and Burton didn’t attempt to be devoted to the unique comedian books.
“It was a bizarre project in that I didn’t must please anybody however Tim Burton. Earlier than the web, you didn’t must go earlier than a tribunal and say what you have been doing — it was simply two guys in a room riffing. We didn’t know shit about Batman villains,” Waters stated. “We didn’t actually perceive the entire comedian e-book factor. I simply came upon DC Comics stands for Detective Comics.”
He added, “The entire thing about ‘Batman Returns’ is we received attacked by Batman followers as a result of they thought, ‘That is solely the second Batman film, what the fuck are you doing? You’re already going off-road,” Waters continued. “Now there’s like 50 Batman films, it’s like, ‘Hey. That was fairly fascinating.’”
