In the three years that distanced Batman Returns from Batman Forever, Warner Brothers also distanced itself from Tim Burton's vision of the caped hero. The director would never return to helm the third movie, which was directed by Joel Schumacher. The franchise took a reboot turn that would change its direction and mood, and it also involved one of the most controversial decisions of its history -- Bat-nipples.
Schumacher replaced Michael Keaton with Val Kilmer and introduced quite a talented cast with Nicole Kidman as his love interest, Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face and Jim Carrey as The Riddler. Burton finally broke his silence on the subject in an interview with Empire Online, where he shared that, although the introduction of Bat-nipples was not the main reason for his departure, it was the last straw.
Why Tim Burton Didn't Make Batman 3
When Batman first opened in 1989, it became a cultural phenomenon. Its success through the visionary eye of Tim Burton sprawled from the cinemas to pop culture, and it made over 400 million worldwide. Warner Brothers was quick to green light Batman Returns, helmed again by Burton and with Michael Keaton reprising the title role. But the studio also had a marketing campaign that involved a lot of merchandising. The movie that was immensely darker than its predecessor, with violence and sexually subliminal messages, was also selling its toys to young children, targeted as part of the audience.
There was a lot of backlash. In the 2005 documentary Shadows of the Bat, screenwriter Daniel Waters recalls watching the movie with an average audience: "The lights are coming up after Batman Returns, and it's like kids crying, people acting like they've been punched in the stomach, and like they've been mugged." There was an undeniable subversive tone that pulled all the film"s characters to this darker place that most people probably didn't expect.
How Joel Schumacher's Bat-Nipples Played a Part in Burton's Batman Departure
Batman Returns earned substantially less than the first film, with 266 million worldwide. The backlash and the financial results put Burton's planned third movie, Batman Continues, on hold until the studio decided to go in another direction. They hired Joel Schumacher and just three years later, Batman Forever was in theaters presenting a goofy style take that was definitely kids-friendly and purely entertaining. It extended into another sequel also directed by Schumacher, Batman & Robin. But both films were not sentenced to age well.
Burton thought it was hypocritical for the studio to embrace Schumacher's goofy style after calling him "too weird." So, basically, seeing the Bat-nipples was his breaking point. "'Wait a minute. Okay. Hold on a second here,'" Burton recalled to Empire, "'you complain about me, I'm too weird, I'm too dark, and then you put nipples on the costume? Go fuck yourself.' Seriously. So yeah, I think that's why I didn't end up [doing a third film]…"
Looking back, Batman has had so many iterations that pointing the finger at Burton is ultimately unfair, especially considering the hero's latest outing is the darkest it's ever been for the character since Batman Returns. "I'm not just overly dark," said Burton, defending his vision. "That’s how I see things, it's not meant as pure darkness. There's a mixture. I feel really fondly about it because of the weird experiment that it felt like."