Miller Reveals Why Warner Bros. Rejected His & Aronofsky's "Batman"

[CBR News]

Frank Miller's Batman was "too nice" for director Darren Aronofsky, but Warner Bros. had a different interpretation of the project.


Full article here.

[Drz]

I would love to see this as an OGN. some of the material was incorporated to the Millerverse anyhow.

[nightrider]

thank goodness that didnt happened. It'll be a good batman earth 1 but I dont know if I want that as the batman that will be defined for years to come.

[taylortexas]

Read this script a year or so ago and it's quite a disaster. If they followed up Batman & Robin with this it would have killed Batman movies dead. I always assumed the craziness could be attributed to Frank though. Kinda surprised to hear that it wasn't him for the most part. If they brought the script to some sort of one-shot Elseworlds thing it could be amusing.

[Steven Ely]

There was more than one script. Frank Miller said, "Darren and I had a blast on YEAR ONE but developed many a friendly difference. Mine lived in the subway and revealed Wayne Manor to Selina in time for a big climax with the Joker. Just to name a couple of the differences. We both submitted separate drafts but the whole works went south when Darren left as director and Warner cleaned house."

There was a horribly misspelled "review" of the little known Miller version of the script at aintitcool.com which bashed the script for Gordon cheating on his wife with Sarah Essen, which is from the Batman: Year One comic book. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/9819

Miller was embellishing and expanding his Batman: Year One comic book story by adding more of Catwoman, and also the Penguin and the Joker to try and make it a big action adventure summer movie, Batman moving temporary into the underground subway system below Gotham as the first Batcave with Catwoman, which Batman references to in Miller's All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder #10 (2008). Miller's draft version also had to include some of director Aronofsky's ideas. Aronofsky wanted the African American mechanic Alfred talking in urban slang, and the director has the power. While Aronofsky was doing his own totally different "realistic" "hard R" version. A poor Batman who tortures people, lives above a garage and was raised in the garage by an African American mechanic called "Little Al" talking in urban slang, and the Batmobile being a rusty old black Lincoln with a bus engine in it were Darren Aronofsky's ideas.

Miller said "Ideas pour out of him. In many ways I think I'm the lighter one of the team and I'm not used to that. I can't really talk about what's in the movie, though because I think Warner Brothers would have somebody beat me up. And asking a screenwriter what the movie's going to be like is like asking a doorman whether a building is going to be condemned." http://www.avclub.com/article/frank-miller-13748

Aronofsky said "I was never planning to direct Year One. I was more interested in writing a screenplay with Frank Miller on Batman. My pitch was always very realistic. I wasn't interested in fantasy I was interested in the psychology of a real man dressing in a disguise to pay out real vengeance. The Batmobile was a souped up Lincoln continental with a bus engine. It was technical and rusty and extremely violent. They would have never let us have violence."

But Miller disagrees with such a realistic Batman. On the documentary Legends of the Dark Knight History of Batman, Miller said, "People are attempting to bring a superficial reality to superheroes which is rather stupid. They work best as the flamboyant fantasies they are. I mean, these are characters that are broad and big."

Aronofsky said, "It was a hard R-rated Batman. What I pitched them was Travis Bickle meets The French Connection - a real guy running around fighting crime. No super-powers, no villains, just corruption. For the Batmobile I had him taking a bus engine and sticking it in a black Lincoln. Real low-tech geek stuff." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/apr/27/1

Aronofsky also said, "I never really wanted to make a Batman film, it was a kind of bait and switch strategy. I was working on Requiem for a Dream and I got a phone call that Warner Bros wanted to talk about Batman. At the time I had this idea for a film called The Fountain which I knew was gonna be this big movie and I was thinking, 'Is Warners really gonna give me $80 million to make a film about love and death after I come off a heroin movie?' So my theory was if I can write this Batman film and they could perceive me as a writer for it."
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/EIFF-...One-13673.html

I'm glad producer Bruce Timm was so faithful to the comic in the Batman: Year One animated movie.

[Holt]

The executive wanted to do a Batman he could take his kids to And this wasn't that

This is what I've been saying in all the recent threads on this site about how Marvel and DC should start making more R rated superhero movies because of Deadpool. You're probably not gonna see someone making a movie based off a character historically aimed at children that people can't actually take their children to. Disney and WB want that action figure money.

[AndrewBatman82]

Disney and WB want that action figure money.

Disney,WB, and even CN has to realise that in this generation kids hardly play with toys only if the toy itself is electronic. kids these days go on youtube and play Video games.

This is what I've been saying in all the recent threads on this site about how Marvel and DC should start making more R rated superhero movies because of Deadpool. You're probably not gonna see someone making a movie based off a character historically aimed at children that people can't actually take their children to. Disney and WB want that action figure money.

i have no problem with that if only we can get a proper DC Animated Show on Adult swim for Adults only and have a DC Animated show for kids only so it will be even and would make a huge profit of those. as of right now we adult DC fans only get a few Direct to Video DC Movies every year and a few good DC live Action show like the flash.

[MarvelMaster616]

I would love to see this as an OGN. some of the material was incorporated to the Millerverse anyhow.

Agreed. This feels like it would work better as an OGN than a movie. While I'm happy with what we got out of Nolan, I do think there was room for improvement. Nolan tried to make Batman so grounded and real. That's all well and good, but I think DC has tried too hard to copy it. They don't understand that what works for Batman doesn't work for other heroes. Hopefully, they'll learn their lesson as they catch up with the MCU.