Batman & Robin: Michael Keaton & Chris O'Donnell

[TMC1982]

It's photos like these that makes me wonder and do a lot of wishful thinking about what if Michael Keaton had stayed on with the Batman franchise after "Batman Returns". Keaton out of the three Batman actors of the Burton-Schumacher era, seems to be the most suitable age wise, to plausibly play off the father-son dynamic between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. When Val Kilmer and George Clooney were involved, it was really more of a "big brother-little brother" scenario. Unfortunately, Keaton is about the same height as O'Donnell.

The only question remaining is how would Keaton's Batman convincingly accept a crime fighting sidekick. Tim Burton and Daniel Waters (who wrote the screenplay for "Batman Returns") never really liked the idea of Robin being around (citing that Batman should be the ultimate loner). There were some ideas being kicked around in the early drafts of the first two films concerning Robin. One involved the Joker randomly killing Dick Grayson's parents. While the other (for "Batman Returns") Robin being a street smart (a la Jason Todd) techno geek, who helps Batman fix the Batmobile. They actually wanted Marlon Wayans for the part.

Here's a bit of an idea of what a Burtonverse Robin suit could've looked like:



Anyway, this is a descrption of Dick Grayson in an early draft of the "Batman Returns" script:

The first draft for BATMAN II was finished in 1990. The plot: Catwoman and the Penguin would frame Batman, turning the poilce, and Gotham against him and Vicki Vale would be rescued by an acrobatic street kid named Dick.

This was the description of what Robin would look like after a script revision:

The script was thrown away and a new one was made. The new script did in fact have the two villians framing Batman, but now there was no Vicki Vale. Batman, however, was the one that was assited by a street kid named Dick, who had an "R" on his overalls.

[TMC1982]

I found this on the IMDb message boards concerning the linking narrative between the two Tim Burton Batman films and "Batman Forever":

Part I. The Batman and Joker fight, Bruce Wayne is violent, and attempting to avenge his parents, in the climax of this fight, he realized his archnemesis is actually the same man who killed his parents all those years ago. He gets his revenge.

Part II. He's consumed, he's killed Jack Napier, but that isn't enough, he becomes more violent, more depressed, he kills people and clearly enjoys it, he puts a bomb in a guys pants and laughs, he turns his car around to set a guy on fire. He's more disturbed than he was in in the first act, he sees some hope in Selina Kyle. But it seems to be something of a false hope as she is even more far gone than he is.

Part III. Now, I know that I will get flack for this. But there is a line from Forever which implies it at least exists in the same universe as the Burton movies, in this scene, Bruce tells Grayson not to kill Harvey Dent, because he will be consumed by anger and revenge, and that killing Harvey won't solve anything. Now, if we operate under the assumption that this is the same Bruce as before, forgetting for the moment that it is not Michael Keaton in the suit, we realize why Bruce is saying this. He's followed down that exact path, he killed the man who killed his parents, and was later nearly consumed by a combination of depression and revenge.

Also, all of the women in Bruce's life fit into this trilogy.

Vicki Vale is the last hope Bruce has for a normal life, she is human, she suffers from no signs of mental illness. She is like an anchor, with which Bruce can pull himself back. But it doesn't work, when Jack is dead, Bruce can't give up, he is consumed, leading to their breakup.

Selina Kyle is Bruce's counterpart at the exact moment that Bruce is at his weakest, and is at his most disturbed. He tries to reach out to her at the end, bringing her back as he begins to delve into his recovery in part III.

Dr. Chase Meridian is basically, an agent of his recovery, she is a doctor after all.

Again, it seems to me that this is the same kind of man, if for no other reason that they share the same taste in women:
All of Bruce Wayne's girlfriends through Forever were blonde women.

I thought that Nicole Kidman was more of a redhead when compared to Kim Basinger and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Continuing...:

Batman & Robin is the second part of Joel Schumacher's intended trilogy. Batman Triumphant would have justified B&R, as it would fling Batman from his comfortable life in the spotlight back into the shadows to battle The Scarecrow, a villain less flamboyant and more psychologically threatening than those he was facing in the present. Much like the transition from the lighter comics of the 1950s-1960s to the edgier detective stories of the 1970s-1980s, Triumphant would have been a harsh wake up call for the Caped Crusader to once again be the Dark Knight.

[DisneyBoy]

Interesting food for thought, some of which had crossed my mind years ago.

Beginning with Keaton/O'Donnell. They really were the best actors to play Batman and Robin in live action form. Both understood their individual characters' appeals. But I agree that Burton's Batman wouldn't have been able to take on a partner.

In my mind, his journey towards the light in Batman Forever could have been in saving the young Dick Grayson. Dick as a teenager in Burton's period Gotham wouldn't have worked, but Burton certainly does understand children...so having a ten-year-old Dick end up in Bruce's life in the third film could have been done, I feel, without sacrificing Burton's "loner" Batman vision.

My fantasy version of Batman Forever involves Walken as Dent (with scenes retroactively filmed and added into the first two films so he was always Dent, even in Returns), Keaton as Batman and Leslie Thompkins instead of Chase Meridian. They needed a female angle, but after Selina, you can't really top the sexual chemistry, so another route would have been wiser.

The plot would involve Leslie returning to Gotham to find Bruce a much changed man, forcing her to reassess whether he'd been worth caring for following his childhood loss...Batman trying to bring Two-Face back from insanity, as young Dick gets caught in the crossfire...and ending ultimately with Bruce taking a ward, and locking up Harvey in Arkham, rather than letting him die.

Maybe it would have been too dark/serious, but at least it would have closed out the Burton films in a way that still kind of works. And the fourth movie could have brought in Chris as the older Robin character, with...I don't know, Freeze or Ivy or Riddler as the villain.

Nevertheless, if you've got any photo-shopped Keaton/Chris as Batman/Robin pics to point me to, go right ahead...they really embodied the characters.

EDIT: Here's a link to a Batman vs Superman movie trailer with a sort of dream cast. Really clever fan video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRmmjxX0yR0

[TMC1982]

How would "Batman Forever" turn out had Tim Burton not only directed it, but still had to use the shooting script (by Janet and Lee Scott-Batchler and Akiva Goldsman) that was ultimately used? Of course this would logically mean the return of Michael Keaton as Batman, Danny Elfman's music, and Bo Welch's (the production designer for "Batman Returns") set designs. Or better yet, Burton had to use the same line-up of characters (i.e. Robin, Two-Face, Riddler, and Chase Meridian) but written by Sam Hamm and/or Daniel Waters (who did the screenplays for "Batman '89" and "Batman Returns" respectively)?

The key differences (as Michael Gough, who of course portrayed Alfred Pennyworth in the Burton-Schmuacher Bat-films, described on the "Batman Forever" special edition DVD) between Tim Burton's approach to Batman and Joel Schumacher's approach to Batman is that Burton specializes in a "psycholgical thriller" while Schumacher specializes in a "visual thriller".