“It was a weird reaction to Batman Returns, because half the people thought it was lighter than the first one and half the people thought it was darker,” the director told Yahoo Entertainment in 2014. Here’s a primer on Batman Forever’s various behind-the-scenes battles and how they shaped the movie you saw in theaters a quarter-century ago.Īs talk turned to a third movie, the studio not-so-gently nudged Burton out the door. In fact, Batman Forever might arguably be worse than Schumacher’s much-lambasted follow-up, Batman & Robin - the 1997 bomb that buried the Bat-movies until Christopher Nolan came along in 2005 with Batman Begins, which celebrated its 15th anniversary this week. Although it was praised in 1995 for injecting some levity into the franchise after the darker Batman Returns, today it feels like the franchise’s low point, filled with jarring tonal switches, a needlessly convoluted storyline and questionable casting choices. Maybe that’s also the reason why Batman Forever hasn’t aged particularly well. While most of those disagreements were shielded from view at the time, details have leaked out over the ensuing decades that paint a picture of the set as a less-than-happy place to be.

“No one wanted another Batman movie that was what we’d all been told by so many people then.”īatman Forever’s commercial success is even more impressive in light of the many feuds that reportedly happened before, during and after the movie’s production. “There wasn’t an enormous expectation on anyone’s part,” Schumacher said in a 2005 retrospective DVD featurette. Not bad for a movie that, according to director Joel Schumacher, wasn’t supposed to succeed. Twenty-five years ago this week, the Caped Crusader ruled the box office as Batman Forever - the third entry in the 1990s Bat-franchise - scored a then-record breaking $53 million opening weekend gross, and went on to be 1995’s top earner with $184 million in its utility belt. (Photo: Warner Bros./courtesy Everett Collection) Batman (Val Kilmer) strikes a pose in the Batcave next to the Batmobile in Batman Forever.

Batman forever movie batcave