How Happy Meals Spoiled ‘Batman & Robin’, Says Producer

It is not uncommon to seer batman & robin being cited as one of the worst superhero movies in all of history. Released in 1997, the feature film directed by Joel Schumacher is also cited as the lowest point in the filmography of the Bat Man,even with a star-studded cast that brought George Clooney (as Bruce Wayne/Batman), Arnold Schwarzenegger (as Dr. Victor Fries/Mr. Freeze),Chris O’Donnell (as Dick Grayson/Robin), Uma Thurman (as Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy) and Alicia Silverstone (as Barbara Wilson/Batgirl).

With so many great actors, a renowned director, and a massive $125 million budget, what could go wrong? A lot of things. The more cartoonish and even childish approach to one of the most obscure characters in mainstream comics is cited as the main cause for failure. Even with the box office of US$ 238 million, which surpassed the investment, the feature suffered from negative reviews at the time and disappointed by bringing a much lower revenue.

More than two decades later, one of the producers of batman & robinrevealed a very curious motivation for this more “colorful” footprint. In an interview with Traversing the Stars (via MovieWeb), Michael Uslan blamed the McDonalds, more specifically his children’s box of McLanche Feliz snacks, for the main creative flaws of the work.

According to him, there was interference from the studios Warner to establish the film as more child-friendly, suitable for children. The idea was to leverage the sale of products related to the characters, especially the toys that come with McLanche Feliz.

“Joel Schumacher, at that time, received a directive from the studio. Back then, the studio was very much in love with toys and Happy Meals. And coming out of Tim Burton’s Batman movies, they wanted to cater to that side of things and they wanted lighter, brighter, kid-friendly, family-oriented movies.”

Another change brought about with the aim of selling toys was the presence of multiple heroes and villains. weren’t just batman and robinagainst a villain and having adjacent characters. The situation was more complex – and forced.

“Toy companies and everything else would ask, ‘Well, how about three heroes in every movie and three villains in every movie? And each with two vehicles and two changes of clothes?’”

“This is not a movie”

In the face of all this, Michael Uslan spared no criticism of the entire work. In his view, what happened behind the scenes of batman & robin “It’s not a movie”.

“My feeling was that the tail started to wag the dog. What you’re doing isn’t movies. You’re doing two-hour toy commercials. If you bring in filmmakers with a vision that you love, that you believe can execute the vision, that you know and understand and have a passion for the character…let them make great movies and the toys will sell anyway.”

It was no use, however, to have this idealistic view at that point. The machine was bigger than the man.

“That was always my philosophy, but he was doing what he was told or asked to do. It’s always good to understand the perspective around that.”

schumachercut

Before Batman & Robin,Joel Schumacher directed the relatively successful Batman Forever (1995), that brought Val Kilmer as Batman. Over the years, it was revealed that the filmmaker had a different, darker vision for the work, which could have been reflected in the next feature. Even snippets of the discarded approach began to circulate on the internet, generating what many call a Schumachercut, more faithful to the director’s original proposal.

Even during the interview, Michael Uslan said he did not have access to this material. However, he pointed out that the records must not be false, as they really Schumacher worked on a different version.

“I know there is footage and I know there are cuts. But reinforcement: Joel Schumacher was one of the nicest and most decent human beings you would ever want to meet. And he gets trashed unfairly when it comes to these two movies he’s done.”