Speaker 1: This is a podcast from Minute Media.
Speaker 2: Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds.
Speaker 3: Lawrence, Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely You
Can't Be Serious Podcast, Season number three.
Speaker 2: I am so stinking excited. It's been too long, man,
I'm glad to be back doing this with you. Yeah.
Who needs Christmas? Who needs New Year's? Who needs time off?
Who needs families and children? Yes, I've missed my buddy, man,
I've missed you. And you know what, here's what I think. Okay,
it's like we're made for each other, beauty and the beast.
But if anyone else calls you a beast offered pair long,
I just want you to know that you are my
number one a guy. All right, everybody, welcome back for
season three. We're starting off with a mammoth task. We
are tackling Batman, Dark Knight, and a little bit of
the Batman. I can't wait to see this. I think
it's really promising looking. Yes, I think it's it's going
to be more of a character study. It's going to
be the darkness that the two movies that we were
talking about jumped into, and not the bright and shiny
made for kids garbage. Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 4: You know, I went through Batman eighty nine. I studied
Batman Returns, I studied Batman forever. I studied Batman and
Robin along with Batman begins The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight,
I said.
Speaker 2: I did it all. Okay, Okay, I looked into all
of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Batman Burton franchise of the eighties and nineties, Yeah,
went down so fast.
Speaker 2: It was just appalling how terrible those got so quickly. Yes,
And as it turns out, it's really just history repeating itself,
and it starts all the way back with the comic books.
This darkness turned into bubblegum, campy pop, just to return
to darkness, just to go back to pop. I mean,
it just goes back and forth. I'm glad that they
seemed to be resisting the urge to lighten things up. Well.
I mean, if we were talking about what's happened after
the Dark Knight trilogy, if we're talking about Zack Snyder's Batman,
he went in directions that I think a lot of
us weren't happy with. And certainly when Joss Whedon got
a hold of it in the Justice League, he turned
it into a bright colorful ball of puke, right, and
so yeah, I think once again where we've reached that
point that people said, why did we go bright and
colorful with Batman yet again, when what truly works is
our dark knight. You know, one of the things that
excites me about the trip it looks gritty and dark.
The thing that caught my ear more than anything, yeah.
Speaker 4: Was the Something in the Way by Nirvana Underneath and
you've really got to be listening for it.
Speaker 2: And it's dark, and I'm like, man, that flashes me
back to our episode absolutely, and it was you that
you tuned me onto that. You're like, you got to
you gotta see this preview right now. It's so good.
And you start off with that sound of the ripping
duct tape and the darkness that unfolds, and you've got
a muscle car as the Batmobile, and you've got characters
that are still characters. I mean, you see that villain
and he it harkens back to those guys, even from
the campy Batman nineteen sixty six version. But it's got
the darkness and I'm really excited about who they have
for the villain. I know, I'm Jim Carrey, no no, sorry, no,
that's the wrong Riddler. Yeah, no, not that one.
Speaker 4: It does look like they're gonna make the Riddler the
bad guy, yes, but he is that same dark joker,
anarchist looking character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something going on there that's much much darker
than a guy in a bright green spandex with question marks. Olover. Awesome, Awesome. Well,
this is a mammoth task because people love these two
movies and people strong feelings about this third one that's
coming out. Yeah, so let's just talk about this for
a second. The comic book the character first came about
back in nineteen thirty nine, so we're talking over eighty
years of history here, and we're only going to do
a couple episodes on this, so we can't really devote
the time that a full analysis of the Batman character deserves.
We could spend probably an entire season just on the
comic books and the cycles that it's gone through. We're
going to give it the justice that we can give it,
but focus mainly on the two most iconic movies, that
being Batman eighty nine and The Dark Knight from two
thousand and eight. Exactly exactly. So you mentioned it Batman first,
appeared in Detective Comics number twenty seven, March thirtieth, nineteen
thirty nine. Yeah. So the concept came about because Superman
had become a success for DC Comics, and this young
guy named Bob kin was interested in becoming involved in
comic books. He loved to draw. He found out that
Schuster and Segull were making like six hundred dollars a
week back in nineteen thirties, money, which was something to behold. Right,
this is the depression time, right, Detective Comics was trying
to find another character, and so his answer was to
come up with somebody that was kind of the antithesis
of the Superman. You know, you mentioned that Bob Kane
was right place, right time. Yeah, he was also very entrepreneurial. Yes,
he saw them making some money and he's like, man,
how can I get on board this train. It is
important to note that Bob Kaine's primary goal was to
become rich and famous. Well you know what he did that.
He did do that. Now, he used some tactics that
are questionable at the very best at best is questionable
and downright dirty might be what some other people say,
but we'll we can talk about that in a bit, okay, okay,
So Bob kin to come up with an idea that
he thinks is going to sell, decides to make something
that is sort of the polar opposite of Superman.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He's not bright and shiny, He's dark, He's mysterious, and
he has three inspirations that lead him to creating what
he would say would either be the Birdman or the Batman.
By the way, I watched Birdman last night. Jed, who
did our intro in our first season, Jet Who's got
his own podcast out there called Limos and Roses. Be
sure and check it out. He has been on me
for like the last six years to watch this movie,
and finally I did it, and I loved it. You
hated it, right, dude, are you crazy? I thought it
was great. I could see why you hated it because
it's not your type of movie. But I really, I
truly enjoyed it. But I thought it was interesting that
the name of that was the Birdman, and the two
ideas that Bob Kine had were either the Birdman or
the Batman, and his inspiration came from a book he
read by Leonardo da Vinci, where he had a glider
a single man glider that he had drawn, and the
wings looked like the wings of a bat, and so
he thought, well, this is this is great. I'm going
to take this and I'm going to combine it with
my other hero, who is Zoro. Right. And you'll notice
a lot of times in the Marquee when the family
walks out of the movie theater, they've been watching the
Mask of Zorro. Okay, So he's like, okay, I'm going
to combine these guys. So what he comes up with
is a guy in a red suit, a red suit,
a red suit, and he has the Zoro style mask
just over the eyes, and he has literal bat wings
coming out of his back, right, not a cad but
like fixed glider wings. Yeah, fixed slider wings. So he
goes to his buddy Bill figure. Bill Finger is an
important feature in our story. We will we will talk
about that in more detail as we go on down
the line, but it is important to note that Bill
Finger is the one that said this is not quite right.
To Bobcaine's credit, he knew it wasn't quite right. So
he goes to his gifted and talented friend Bill Finger yeah,
and says, well, what do you think, and he's like,
well he needs to since he's fighting crime at night
and he's a vigilanti and stuff like that, he needs
to be you know, masked and covered.
Speaker 4: And so that little domino mask that's not really going
to do the trick. So let's cover him up and
give him a cow.
Speaker 2: Also, those fixed wings, it's not really practical, and what
happens when he's walking around, so let's give him a cake? Right,
And he also changed it from red to gray, right, right,
because he's at night, right, he's got to blend into
the shadows. Yeah. And so Bob Kane takes this creation,
which also the cowl included the little bat like ears
on top, and takes it to DC Comics, then Detective
Comics and says, here's my character. They say, we love it.
They signed a contract and on the contract is his name,
Detective Comics name, and nobody else.
Speaker 4: Yes, and there's a whole We watched a document around
this called Batman and Bill.
Speaker 2: I recommend it to everybody, whether you are a comic
book fan or not, you definitely need to watch this
dive in because what happened that day was one of
those make or break moments and Bob Kane chose to
do the wrong thing and had to double down on
it again and again throughout the course of his life,
and it cost poor Bill Finger a career. Yeah, so
we got the comic books. He's immediately he is a
hit out of the gate, and interestingly his first year
he's got guns right, and he's market people. I mean,
it's he really is a vigilanting right, the no kill
Batman did not exist yet. This was a guy who
was a vigilante, who was going out and doing dirty
work and important to the idea of detective comics. He
was solving mysteries. He was like a detective. And then
things changed. Okay, so we can keep on going on
the comic books, but we're here to talk about movies.
I want to talk about nineteen forty three Batman's first
appearance in film. It was that was really pretty much
just World War two propaganda. You had a evil mustache
toiling Japanese guy as the villain. Uh huh, I am
that guy.
Speaker 5: I'm observing of this much. Just the hero hit that
by divine destiny, my country shall destroy the democratic forces
of evil in the United States to make way for
the new Order.
Speaker 2: But Interestingly, this is the first time the concept of
the bat Cave appeared really okay in the movie. Yes,
in this it was a serial, you know, like cereals
in the nineteen forties. This is forty three, So you've
got You've got the Batman. He's got the bat Cave
in this, which first time you see that, and also
the concept of him going to it through the Grandfather clock,
which is both of those things have just become iconic,
but most people don't know about this old thing, or
that they came about from a movie and not from
the comic books. Originally interesting, it was also the first
time you had a thin Alfred in the comics. He
had been this little portly fat dude. Okay. And the
guy who played Batman and that was named Lewis Wilson.
He didn't appear in film again until nineteen forty nine.
It was another sixteen episode serial, and this one was
Batman and Robin Robert Lowry had played Batman. And in
that one we had Jane Adams as Vicky Vale. Stop
the brand who.
Speaker 1: Sticky Vail, Sticky Vale.
Speaker 2: I like that Vicky Vale.
Speaker 4: The one thing I know about old time Vicky Vale. Yeah,
I know she was a reporter, and I know she
had red hair.
Speaker 2: That's it. I don't think we could have sold Kim
Bay Singer as a red head. No, but thankfully we
got Nicole Kidman as doctor Chase Meridian a couple of
pictures later. Well, I wish I could say that my
interest in you was purely professional. Well as nice as
she looks, she didn't save that film, true, right, Okay, So,
so by the nineteen fifties, comic books had really increased
in popularity and they had basically become the TikTok or
the violent video games of the nineteen fifties. That's right.
They had the parents and the psychologists and all of
the adults of the time were saying, corrupting the minds
of the youth. I know, right, this is the MTV
of the nineteen forties. Well, and you've got Batman out
market people, right, he had a machine gun on the Batmobile.
So what happened is a crusade started against them, and
ultimately what they did is they created their own governing
morality board, and there were rules that were put in
place to censor the comic books, to keep them from
corrupting the minds of the youth. Okay, now we said
a bit ago. You know, we've got this idea of
Batman does not kill, right, I'm no executioner. Yes, now
people have tread on that rule. You you idiot, You'll
made me. And so the question is where the rule
come from?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 2: It turns out that it probably came from this sensor board.
Interest as a matter of fact, it's definitely came from
this sensor board. What they said is superheroes cannot kill villains.
They can fight the villains, the villains can die, but
the villains cannot be murdered by the superhero. They have
to die as a result of their own macanizations. So
if say, the Joker falls off a gigantic cathedral, that's okay, Well,
it depends.
Speaker 4: But if Batman tastes grenade and sticks it in his
pants like he does, and Batman returns, that would be wrong.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, Or if he throws a grapple hook around
his ankle and then ties the other end to a
two ton gargoyle, is that one bunt run a foul?
I would say it probably would. Yeah, interesting, But I
think that's key to the beauty of this character. If
you have a Batman and the Kills, you just have
a vigilating It is that one rule which we can
talk about more, especially when we get to Dark Knight,
that he does not kill. That makes his character more interesting. Okay,
that is interesting because, like you said, in the Dark Knight,
that is his rule. That is the rule he will
not break. Right, that's the one rule I will not
be an executioner. In Batman eighty nine, he doesn't have
that rule. Doesn't seem too In fact, he goes to
the joke and he's like, I'm gonna kill you, Yeah,
right after he threw some guy down a gigantic bell shaft.
The ninja who happened to appear at the top of
the cathedral, the ninja who just happened to show up.
But we can get into those all right, when we
find flaws. Now, let me say this. Let me say this. Now, yes,
we will discuss some flaws with these movies. But keep
in mind, we are diehard fans, We are total fanboys.
So please don't think that we don't love these movies.
We just we have to point out the things that
are not quite perfect. Okay, So comic books, finally they
got rained in a a little bit. They're still escalating
in popularity. And one of the guys who was a
huge comic book collector, like filled his parents' garage with
the comic books he bought was a guy named Michael Uselin.
So back in nineteen sixty five they had the very
first comic con I heard about. This.
Speaker 4: This was in like a ghetto part of New York City,
in the basement, like in this scummy hotel that actually
burned down later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think the original one was sixty four
that was in New York and it was it was bad.
That one was bad, but this one was also bad.
This said, the one in sixty five is the one
that became a recurring thing. Okay, And it wasn't in
just in you know, some guy's basement or something, but
it was the hotel in Detroit. And yes, there were
bums asleep on the floor in the lobby. Yes. And
then as they walked through to the convention area, they
have to walk through the bar. And as they're walking
through the bar, little Michael Uslan says, oh my gosh,
that's Auto Binder, like he would go on he at
the time he was doing Captain Marvel. He would go
on to create Supergirl. He was a huge figure in
comic books. And he's having you know, a whiskey sour
up at the bar, and Kitty is exactly what he's
come here kid. He goes and he says, do you
want to meet the guy who created Batman? And Michael
Luslan is like, I'm going to get to meet Bob Kane,
and Auto Binder says, here, I'd like you to meet
Bill Finger. Who is this? So this this comic con,
this first one was the first time that Bill Finger
had come out in public and talked about how big
a factor he had been in the creation of Batman
and all of the villains, which is huge. And I
don't mean all, but I mean Joker, Catwoman, some some
pretty big deals. Batmobile a lot of times got them.
I think. Yeah, back in these days, they had ghost
writers just like they do now. Sure, but this went
beyond that. This was the guy who was truly creating
all of the storylines, the brilliance behind all of the villains,
and Bob Kane was drawing the pictures and he was
along for the ride. And it wasn't as though he
contributed nothing but the idea that the guy who was
primarily responsible for the story ideas got no credit at all.
It's truly troubled. Yeah, okay, so one year later, something
happens nineteen sixty six. Yes, mister Adam West and Bert Ward.
Speaker 4: And Julie Numar and Burgess Meredith, they create Batman sixty
six the TV show.
Speaker 2: Nona or the shark repellon. Oh the shark repellent. Oh yes,
the spray can shark repellent. I had forgotten all about that.
That's fantastic. So Michael Luselan is at this point a
slightly older kid, you know, he's in his teenage years,
and he is both excited and mortified at what is
going on because now the world knows about Batman, which
is exciting to him because he loves Batman so much.
The troubling part is he's a goofball. Yeah, he's pow
and KaBlam and bob. Michael Luselan is like, this is
not my Batman. Holy can't be spoofed Batman? Right, right?
So Batman the series definitely brings a lot of spotlight
onto the Batman character, right Lunchbox's action figures. Adam West
becomes a star, Julie Nimara Think described him as the
carry Grant of TV. I mean, he was just this
cool guy. And what Michael Luslan says when he sees
this is I am going to make it my mission
in life to show people the real Batman, the Batman
of the dark, the Batman that is mysterious and troubled
and torn and not capaw blam pow. I would say,
like Bill Finger, Michael Uslin is the unsung hero of Batman. Lord.
I've given away the storyline here, but he is involved
in every Batman movie from the nineteen eighties on. I'm
surprised we haven't heard more about this guy. Okay, so
if you watch the documentaries, he's always there. It doesn't
matter which Batman Bee that he is there. And what's
interesting is he goes to college seventies, now goes to
law school. And during this time, the University of Indiana says, hey,
we are going to allow people to pitch us ideas
for college courses that may be unusual and will decide
whether they get credit or not. Say, Michael Uslin is
like perfect, I'm going to teach a class on comic
books and their relationship to mythology and to history, and
he goes in to make his pitch and the Dean
looks down his nose at him and said, oh, you're
the funny books guy. Right, Yeah, he says, there's no
way I am going to approve comic books. Don't get
me wrong, I loved them. I read them when I
was a kid. Entertainment is what he called them, Yes,
just cheap entertainment. And so Michael Usland says, are you
familiar with the story of Mosts? And the Dean says yes.
He says, can you tell me the story of Mosts?
And the Dean says, well, his parents were worried about him,
afraid he was going to be killed, so they put
him in a basket see him down the river. He
was ultimately picked up by the Royal family, raised as
one of their own, but went on to be a
hero of his own people. And then Michael Usland said,
now you said that you read Superman, right, and the
Dean says yes. He goes, can you tell me the
story of Superman's origin? And then the Dean said, yeah,
his origin was he started off on Krypton as a baby.
His parents were worried about him dying, and so they
sent him off on a ship and he was raised
by other parents. Mister Uslin, your course is approved. I
love that story. Man. Oh thank you, mister Dane. I
will take it and run with it. Now here's something
that you don't know. Okay, so Uselin truly appreciating what
he had in his hands with this college course, right
one fame by anonymously calling local newspaper reporters and TV
stations and complaining about the course. Really, as a result
the news and the newspapers, the TV is like, oh,
this is interesting. This is a somebody's teaching a college
course on comics and it's dumb. Let's go check it out.
And they all showed up. There were newspaper articles that
came out, there were news stories that came out, and
he immediately became famous from teaching this class. That's fantastic.
I heard that. Stanley calls him out of the blue.
Speaker 4: Hey, man, I just want to tell you thank you
for legitimizing comic books.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then you had guy Saul Harrison, who is the
VP of DC. Yeah at the time, he invited him
to come visit them in New York City.
Speaker 2: Check it out. He taught this class for quite a
few years actually, and he had intended to have these
guys each semester have different guest speakers come in and speak.
But he found out that Dannie O'Neil, the guy who
created Russell hal Goole is he was the one that
everybody always asked for, and so he's just like, okay, well,
I'm just going to make him the regular invitee. And
so Dannie O'Neill, who's a huge part of the Batman cannon,
became a regular speaker at this college classes class as well.
Speaker 4: Razill goul is the bad guy in Batman begins if
you remember that, yeah, the Leem Neeson character exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay. So he ends up participating on talk shows and
radio shows, and ultimately this spins into a job for
him as as a production attorney for United Artists, That's right.
And so he meets somebody there who's got an inside deal.
He pitches this idea of making the Batman movie but
making it in the Dark Night style. Now, Dark Knight
had been coined, but wasn't the comic book yet, And
so on October third, my birthday, nineteen seventy nine, I
was four years old. Hey, they got DC Comics to
option them the rights to Batman movie and Batman cartoons,
and they formed Batfilm's Inc. On that day, nineteen seventy nine. Okay,
let's talk about what was going on in nineteen seventy nine. Sure,
so I'm old enough to remember nineteen seventy nine. Yeah,
during the seventies and early eighties, super Friends was on
all the time. Yeah, did you watch super Friends? Absolutely
Wonders when Powers activate and all that stuff. I always
thought it was an injustice for the super twin who
could only do form of water. What the other guy
gets the big any animal, when you have to be ice,
water or vapor, that's it. I'm a tideaway, I'm a
bucket of water. But so, in nineteen seventy eight, Richard
Donner released Superman in the Movie, right, and of course
a couple of years prior to that, in nineteen seventy
seventy of Star Wars, Right. And so now you're having.
Speaker 4: These big blockbuster, sort of popcorn entertainment movies. But really
the father of the Batman eighty nine movie is Superman
nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: We talked about, and please listeners go back and listen
to our Superman one and two versus Man of Steel.
We did that episode with John Reid from the thirty
something Movie podcast. Also go subscribe to that podcast is
flat out awesome. We talked about that history and detail
on Superman seventy eight happens and they say, oh wow,
it turns out that a comic book movie can make money, right,
which Warner Brothers also did Superman. They see this opportunity
with these guys who are like, hey, we want to
do Batman next, and it's the next logical step. But
it was nineteen seventy nine, and we know Batman didn't
happen for another almost ten years. Batman, Batman, Can somebody
tell me what kind of a world we live in?
We're a man dressed up as a bat it's all
of my press. This town needs an enema. Yeah, so,
what the heck happened? I don't know exactly why that
took so long, but I can tell you what happened
in that span. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Imagine you're holding the Batman property right and you're watching
the box office. You're like, holy cow, Superman's out there.
Speaker 2: It's making money. Love it. It's fantastic.
Speaker 4: Superman two comes along in nineteen eighty one, people are like, hey,
this is great. It's a little bit corny, but it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: People love it.
Speaker 4: Nineteen eighty three comes along, Superman three comes out. Eh,
that movie sucked. No, that movie sucked.
Speaker 2: And then a bit of the Richard Pryor Show. But
it was the Richard Pryor Show. Yeah. And then in
nineteen eighty seven you have Superman four The Quest for Piece.
Now imagine you're holding the Batman property and you see
that piece of crap that comes up on the screen.
The biggest tird that Superman ever shot is that turd
worse than Jos four. We will find out later on
this summer. That's gonna be fun when we do our
worst of the number four. We know that Batfilm's Inc.
Is formed October third, nineteen seventy nine. Yes, we know
that ten years go by before the Batman comes to
the movie theaters. So in addition to what happened with
Superman movies, some other interesting things happen. Okay, a guy
named Frank Miller. This is a guy who at six
years old went to his mom and said, I want
to draw comics for the rest of my life. That's
all I want to do. He had it as a
mission from six. He knew he wanted to go to
New York City because that's where many of his comic
book heroes were from. Ultimately, that's what he did. He
got a job as a comic artist and he was very,
very good. But he, like Michael Uselin, wanted to go
back to that original concept of the Dark Knight detective
mystery vigilante character, and so in nineteen eighty six he
released a series called The Dark Knight Returns. There are
a few storylines that play into both of these movies.
One is the Killing Joke, one is The Dark Knight Returns.
One is a Long Halloween, and then the other is
Batman Year one. That's right. I get a strong feeling
with the Batman that's coming out in March that we're
going to get a lot of Batman Year one, Right,
sure and hopeful. I think you're right. You know what
else happened in nineteen eighty five other than Back in
the Future. Other than Back to the Future, same summer,
you have this movie called Pee's Big Adventure that comes out, Yeah,
directed by this guy named Tim Burton. Yeah, So here's
the story on that one right. Yeah. So the reason
they had taken so long to make Batman into a
movie is because they couldn't get a good script and
they couldn't find a script that worked. They had been
talking about Bill Murray as Batman with Eddie Murphy as Robin,
and I've been rymen directing. Yeah, we would have had
a Richard Lester version of Batman. Had we probably had
either one of those guys direct, right, we would have
had Gremlins or Ghostbusters version of Batman. And that wouldn't
have been right. Let's say that again. I've been rightman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Bill Murray as Batman, Eddie Murphy as Robin.
Speaker 2: Hysterical, but not the Batman that we have. Not what
we want, No, not what we want.
Speaker 4: I want to get into castile in here a little
bit because I've got a whole You know, when you
have a movie that's developed for.
Speaker 2: Over ten years, Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of
names associated with it. Sure, some of them will blow
your skirt up. Yeah, they're gonna blow your mind. So
Warner Brothers was ready to shelf the project. They couldn't
get a script. They were going to put it on
the shelf and say we're not making this movie. Bob
Kane got on his knees and prayed for a savior,
and that savior's name was Tim Burton. Will they get
a load of me? So Tim had been working for Disney.
He had made a couple of shorts, ones called Frank
and Weeney. The other one is called Vincent's. Okay, both
movies I saw when I was a kid and I
will shorts I song was a kid and I love it.
They're weird, very Tim Burton style. Sure, but he wasn't
anybody famous at this point, and so he had found
some favor with this lady named Bonnie Lee who worked
over Warner Brothers, and she convinced him to come over
and join Warner Brothers. Well, another prodigy of Bonni Lee
is a guy named Sam Ham. Yeah, Sam Am And
so Bonnie Lee is really I mean, she's the glue
that brought these things together. And she said, Hey, Sam,
could you come over to Tim's office. I would love
for you guys to talk about some stuff. And Sam's like, okay, yeah, sure,
and so they go over. They shoot the breeze for
a while, and then Tim Burton's like, you know what
about this batman? Script, What do you think we can
do on that? And so sam Ham, you know, secretly,
is jumping for joy and it's like, oh, yeah, you know,
if you're interested in that, I guess I probably you know,
look at it, right, And he ends up developing a
script which becomes basically the first two acts of Batman.
Act three is something we need to talk about when
we talk about Warren's Yeah. So Warren Scarrin comes in
later on as a writer and he touches up some
stuff that sam Ham has done. But Samam couldn't do
anything at the time because there was a writer's skip
strike going on. He couldn't come in and make adjustments
during the movie, so they were kind of winging things
a little bit. Listen, Jack Nicholson and he's carrying Kim
Basinger up to the top of the cathedral, says, says,
where am I going? Like what am I doing here?
And they're like, we're not sure what's going on just yet,
but we're working on right, So here's the origin story
on this on that thing. Okay, the night before I'm
not even kidding. The night before, Tim Burton and Peter
Guber go and watch Phantom of the Opera, and the
last scene of Phantom of the Opera is him taking
her up in this tower, and so they're like, we
should do that. Hey, great idea, let's do that. Oh
my gosh, here's the other half of the rest of
the story. Yes, Kim Basinger, who is currently banging John Peters,
who's the other producer on Batman, right, says, well, wait
a minute, where's Vicky Vaiale. She needs to go up
in the tower. She wasn't supposed to go in the tower.
It was just supposed to be Batman chasing Joker. That's it.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: And so he's like, you know what, honey, I agree
with you since you're laying in bed next to me.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Kim Bay, Singer, John Peters, Peter Guber, and Tim Burton
got together and created the third act out of Underwear
and Chocolate.
Speaker 2: So Underwear and So rewind just a little bit. Bonnie
Lee gets Tim Burton over. She introduces him to this
guy from the Groundlings named Paul Rubins, Yeah, who was
interested in making a movie based on this character. He
had for a stand up routine called pee Wee Herman
making mister Hermann, Mister Herman, you have a telephone call
at the front desk, and I've seen that stand up
routine and it is breaking hilarious. And when they meet
each other, they are two peas in a pot. And
then they decide, Hey, you know what, we need somebody
to write the music for this thing. And Paul Rubin says, Oh,
I know this guy. His name's Danny Elfman. He plays
with his band called Oengo Buindo. He might be a
good fit.
Speaker 4: You sent me a clip from the nineteen any six
Gong show. Yeah, where the Knights of Oingo Boying the
Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo.
Speaker 2: Yes, we can talk more detail about that whenever we
get to our composers. But man, there's some fascinating how
Danny Elfman came through all that is incredible. So before
Warner Brothers was completely ready to green light Tim to
direct the project, they needed to see that he could
make a movie that would put money in the bank. Yep.
So Tim does this other movie that you might have
heard of called Beeple Juice, People Juice, Wheele Juice. What
are your qualifications? Ah well, I intended tally are. I'm
a graduate the Harvard Business school. I travel quite extensively.
I lived through the Black Plague and I had a
pretty good time during that.
Speaker 5: I've seen the ex Or systembout one hundred and sixty
seven times, and I can't getting buddier every single time.
Speaker 2: I said, not to mention the fact that you're talking
to it.
Speaker 1: That guy, No what you'll think.
Speaker 2: It's a fantastic movie. And that's where you get. I mean,
Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis get their started it. Yep,
you get Catherine O'Hara, who goes on to do Home Alone.
The principal from Paris Bieler's Day Off is in it.
How have you not, said Winona writer, I was waiting
on you to say I was young enough at that
point that it was okay for me to have a
total cushion.
Speaker 4: Well, and Tim Burton uses her later in Edwards SUSA.
And then of course you have the amazing performance by
Michael Keaton.
Speaker 2: It's show Down. So you've got some pieces that are
starting to fall together. We've got a director who has
a vision, We've got a script that's got legs. We
just need good financing and a star's face. I've got
some great stuff on casting we'll come back to that
here after we go through the beginning and the origins
of the Dark Knights. Like I always say, if you
got to go, go Smike, go with a smile. So interestingly,
at this exact same time, nineteen eighty six, there's a
young man nineteen twenty comic book fan. He sends a
letter he sent actually quite a few letters that end
up getting published, about to blow your mind, right, Are
you ready for this? Yes? Okay? So he sends a
letter to Marvel Captain America issue and says, let me
congratulate you. You got me reading Captain America again. He
goes on to give some ideas. Now think about the
movies when I say this, all right, just what the
letter says, the fact that Captain America is a symbol
of the American dream creates a number of story problems.
What type of man would have the audacity to proclaim
himself a living symbol of America. So he's going to
this psychological weight right of Captain America, and he says,
what exactly does cap represent? Our government isn't nearly as
upfront or virtuous as the elected officials would have us believe.
Does the Captain unquestioningly accept whatever the current American policy is,
or does he formulate opinions of his own. I mean,
that's the Avengers plot line in nineteen eighty six, thirty
years before the movie comes out. Who is this guy?
His name is David S. Goyer. Yeah, he would go
on just a year or two later to write some movies.
The first one that got made was a terrible script,
but he met a guy who was excited about it.
He didn't speak very good English. His name was Jean
Claud ven Dam and the movie was about a prison first.
I just I gotta tell you this story, all right, Okay.
So he's huge comic book fine, and he's also decides
he wants to be a writer, wants to be a screenwriter.
And he reads an article about this agent who is
had become an agent at like twenty two years old,
which is really young to become an agent. But he
thinks this guy's got some moxie, he's got some drive,
he's hungry, right, yeah, I'm going to give him a call. Okay.
So he's in college and he calls this agent. He
gets a secretary and she's like, okay, I'll let him
know you called he's like, okay, he knows he's not
going to call back, so he calls again the next day,
and the next day and the next day for forty
five days straight, and finally, on the forty fifth day,
the agent picks up the phone and he's like, who
them is this, and he's like, well, my name is
David S. Koyer. He's like, I don't know why I
threw the S in there. I guess it just made
me think it sounded I sounded important that way, and
I want to be a writer. And the guy's like, listen,
send me your script. I'm probably not going to represent you,
but send me your script and don't call here anymore.
So he sends him the script and the agent calls
him back. Nice, No, he doesn't. Two weeks go by
and he's like, okay, I'm gonna start calling again. You
ask for a buddy. So two weeks goes by, he
calls again and the agent's like, you know what, the
script sucks, but I want to represent you anyway, because
you've got drive, You've got something here that can become something.
And pretty soon that agent introduces him to Jean Claude
ven dem who is a excited about the script that
he has written where a cop infiltrates a prison and
the name has changed from dust In to a movie
you might have heard of called Death Point came out
in nineteen ninety. A few years later, about ten scripts in,
he writes a script based on a comic book and
it becomes Marvel's first movie, first real movie, Blade with
Wesley Snipes. You want to know what's crazy. They optioned
Blade from Marvel for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.
Come on, man, I mean the franchise is probably probably
a multi hundreds of millions of dollars, if not a
billion at this point from the three that came and
the second one they got for one hundred and seventy
five just because it was part of the contract. They
didn't have any choice. It's about to be rebooted again.
But keep in mind, this is what started Marvel in
the movies, right. It's amazing. Every Marvel thing you saw
before this was TV like thor on the incredible Hule
TV series. Right. Nothing good. By the way, there's a
movie that never got made on the Fantastic Four. I
think we got to do a series on the Curse
of the Fantastic Four because it's a great comic book
series that has never produced a good movie. But Roger
Corman was supposed to do a Fantastic Four movie back
in the early nineties. Jay Underwood is Johnny Storm and
it never came to see the light of day. But
they filmed the whole movie and there's a documentary on them.
We've got to do that thing. You watch it. Yeah,
we gotta find By the way, the paycheck that he
got for death warrant went out and bought an a
Zuzu Trooper, which got stolen the same Well, I'm glad
to see that he did better for himself later on
Den Round. So blade happens. He's doing well. And in
two thousand and two, a guy pitches a Batman reboot
to Warner Brothers. Guy's name Josh Whedon. Interesting, and Warner
Brothers said, nah, no thanks. So what happens is they
think it's a good idea to reboot Batman. This is
just the wrong script for it, and so they start
sending out calls to directors they're interested in. Well, one
of the directors that they're interested in is a guy
who has done two movies. One of them was fantastic
called Memento. Right. The other one was Insomnia, which is okay,
I didn't really care for it that much. Okay, but
he's done a couple of decent movies right, right, And
he has been trying to make this movie based on
people going into the mind of others during their dream state,
this idea for a movie called Inception. But the studios
that he's talking to, I'll say, this is absurdly expensive
if you are not qualified at this point to do it.
You know, see if you can make an action movie
and then come back and see us. And this is
the same time that Warner Brothers is sending out calls
and so this guy named Christopher Nolan's wife, Emma Thomas,
gets a message that says, hey, this is Warner Brothers.
We want to know if Chris might be interested in
doing something with Batman. And she thinks, no way, Yeah,
he's a chance. He's a high yper intelligent independent filmmaker.
And have you seen the Batman movies lately? No way, right,
But she tells him anyway, and Christopher Nolan says, actually,
I think there's a story on the Batman that hasn't
been told yet. Now, are you familiar with Darren Aronsky.
He did Requiem for a Dream and Pie and the
Noah movie with Russell trow Right, right, Yes, I heard
he was attached at one point. Moving on, so, Christopher
Nolan says, I want to do a movie that truly
tells the origin story of Batman. Everybody knows the kid
with his parents outside the theater, they're murdered, et cetera,
et cetera. Right, you have mcdams with a bit of
by moon Light, but what happens in between there and
the Batman? The only thing we really see in the
comic books is he dedicates his life to making himself
the best mentally and physically that he can't. But that's it.
Christopher Nolan says, I think there's a story that can
be told there that is worth telling. But there are
a few things that I need to establish. We're not
doing the same stuff that the Batman have been doing
in the past. We are going to do a movie
that could really happen. It's based in reality, right, and
he admits, you know, this is cinematic reality, but we
want to be as true to real life as we
can possibly be. Okay, So before we go any further.
Speaker 4: For me, I wrote down some big ideas between these
movies that I want to discuss, and one of the
big ideas about the Dark Knights series the end of
the Christopher Nolan Batman series is the plausibility of these movies, right, okay,
So he went above and beyond, in my opinion, to
make sure that these things are, as you say, cinematic realism.
Right In Batman begins, for instance, Christian Bale's character Verusuayne
goes across and study and becomes this ninja guy. He
studies from Rozel Goal and he has these armor things
on his arm because he's fighting swords.
Speaker 2: And so that that's why he has those armor plated
foe arm things. Sure, okay.
Speaker 4: So with the talking about the plausibility, and the producers
in the studio said, well, we really feel like it
needs to have the Batmobile in some capacity. Just really
not a Batman movie without the Batmobile. So Christopher Nolan's like, okay,
you know, I think I can work with that. So
he goes to his production designer. His name is Nathan Crullley,
and Nathan's like, okay, well, what do you what do
you have in mind? And Christopher Nollan's like, well, I
think it's going to be some sort of combination between
a Humbye and a nineteen seventies Lamborghini, and so he's like, okay,
And so he actually went to like Toys r us
or hobby Lobby and he got a model kit of
both a Humby and a Lamborghini and made a hybrid
in the like his living room, and that became the
infamous tumbler from the Christopher Nolan movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah he's had it looked like crap, but ultimately it
led to the It led to that Batmobile, and it
led to what Christopher Nolan says was his first contribution
to the script, which is does it come in black?
Oh yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah. So really interestingly, Bruce Wayne
drives a Lamborghini and both Batman begins and in the
Dark Night and it is a convertible Martial Lago, which
means bat you got it. I have given a name
to my Lamborghini, and it is the bats fantastic Okay.
So after David Goyer sold his script and God is
a Zuzu Stolen, he decided, Hey, I'm a writer. Now
I'm gonna have some business cards made up, and so
he had business cards that just said David S. Goyer
writer and he's pretty proud of it. He takes him
back to his screenwriting teacher, who's Nelson getting at usc
and says, look look what I've got, and Getting looks
at this and he's like, throw this away. Why he goes,
you're not a writer, you are a human being who
writes for a living. Throw these away and go live
life saving way quote. To write about life, you got
to live it. And so David throws away his business
cards and he starts traveling the world. Goes to Africa,
goes to Europe, and he also goes to Tibet. Okay,
he didn't know that later on Christopher Nolan would be
calling him up and saying, Hey, I've got this idea
for Batman and how he becomes Batman, and I'm thinking
that he needs to go through some sort of training
like in the Orient or Asia. And David says, you
know what, I just got back from Tibet, and I
think I got a good idea how we can make
that work. I would say that his travel probably influenced
The Dark Knight on why he went to Hong Kong
as well. Exactly. So Christopher and David es Gooyer they
write this movie called Batman Begins, which is fantastic. I
watched in preparation for what we're doing, but I can't
get distracted on it because what we're really here to
talk about is the Dark Knight. Now, David had written
some treatments for sequels to Batman Begins, and they had
the Joker, and they had Harvey Dent, and in it,
as per the comic books, Harvey's scarring of his face
happens because the Joker throws acid on him from the
witness chair. That was what was going to happen in
the movie. Now we still have a similar scene, right,
We've got Harvey Dent who gets a gun pointed at
him from a witness in a witness chair and takes
it away. But imagine the anticipation of all of your
comic book fanboys when he jumps up there like, oh,
two faces about to happen now, and it doesn't. In
case you missed that scene, it does happen in Batman Forever.
Speaker 4: Tummy Lee Jones is the district attorney Harvey Dent and
gets acid thrown on his face while Batman is sitting
in court and the most ridiculous looking thing of all
the time.
Speaker 2: Is this the Belcomer one? Yes, okay, so the last
one I watched before I watch Batman again. I'm just
I gotta be honest. I love Batman, but I could
not bring myself to watch the Colooney versions. You are
really selling yourself short, I'm telling you, uh huh. I
don't believe you. But anyway, you do see that court
room scene and Batman sitting there in his bat outfit
in court. It looks so ridiculous. But we're not here
to talk about Mannett forever. Okay. So, so David Goyer
has written these treatments, but really, when it comes to go,
he's got a storyline that becomes The Dark Knight. But
Christopher Nolan's brother, Jonathan Nolan, is also a major factor
on writing the script for part two for The Dark
Knight that we're here to talk about to day. One
of the things that you mentioned you kind of refer to.
At the end of Batman begins, Gordon says, Hey, we're
having a little bit of a problem. We've got this
guy who's causing trouble, and he shows Batman a Joker
card in a ziploc bag, and when I saw that
in a theater, people gasped. People were like, oh my gosh,
that's incredible Joker. So there was a lot of anticipation
for the Dark Knight and the Joker character. I think
a lot of people wanted him to bring back Jack Nicholson.
That wouldn't have been necessarily a horrible choice, except then
we get what we get. Yeah, I want to know
how I got these scars.
Speaker 1: My father was a drinker and a fiend. That one
night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the
kitchen knife and DEFENDERSLF. He doesn't like that, not one bit.
So me watching he takes the knife to her, laughing
while he doesn't. He turns to me and he said,
why so serious?
Speaker 2: Okay, Jason, tell you a story about a young man
who loses two loved ones on the same day, is
totally distraught, leaves home, goes to learn how to be
a fighter, to learn how to be a man, comes
back and becomes an annenforcer of the law and becomes
a hero to the people.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Bruce Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt Okay,
So I don't just say that because I'm like grasping
his draws here.
Speaker 2: Teddy Roosevelt was the guy that Christopher Nolan told everybody
as they started, Batman begins, this is the biography you
need to read, because this is our Bruce Wayne. See,
that's interesting that you say that, because I have always
seen the Dark Knight Christopher Nolan Batman as George W. Bush.
Oh wow, because and when we paint this picture for you, yeah,
go ahead, this is post nine to eleven. You have
a very serious person about fighting terrorism and using whatever
means necessary to bring justice to those who are inflicting pain,
and willing to bend a few rules to get the
job done.
Speaker 4: And it just kind of fits that timeslot for me.
That's why I always thought it was George W. Bush
to tell me about Teddy Roosevelt. Well, so, Teddy Roosevelt,
it's not his mom and his dad. Well, it's his mom,
but not his dad. His dad actually died of cancer
when he was very young. He didn't tell anybody that
he had cancer. Just suddenly he's gone.
Speaker 2: So he grows up, he gets married, He lives in
the house with his mother and his new bride and
she is expecting a child, and his wife dies in childbirth,
and just within an hour or two later, his mother dies.
Both die on the same day he leaves. He leaves
his newborn with nurses to take care of her, because
that's the way things went back in the late eighteen hundreds,
I guess. And he goes out and becomes a rough rind.
He goes out and lives on the plane and probably
is contemplating his own death much like Bruce Wayne is doing. Okay, right, Yeah,
get as dirty and nasty and hard as I can get.
And then he comes back and he becomes a street
out right, not a bicycle who ultimately becomes Commissioner of
the police, who ultimately becomes President of the United States
in credible Yeah and not know that story blow my
mind all right now. For his inspiration for The Dark Night,
Christopher Nolan looked at the Joker in his debut in
nineteen forty the original Batman comic, right, was it April
of nineteen forty? I believe it just says the spring
issue of nineteen forty. Okay, so I think the month
before Robin had gotten introduced, and then the next month
Batman gets his own named comic book, and we get
introduced to the Joker and Catwoman.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wooh, that's a big one. Wow. So there's that. When
he's looking at that, he's looking at the killing joke
from nineteen eighty eight, and as we discussed before, the
nineteen ninety six series The Long Halloween, which retold Harvey
Dentz origin. By the way, the Dark Knight nickname first
applied to Batman in Batman Number one, nineteen forty story
by the Finger. All Right, so Christopher Nolan goes back
to the guy who had done cinematography for him for Memento,
guy named Wally Feister. Fantastic cinematographer. This was the first film,
mainstream feature that utilized Imax seventy milimeter cameras. That's incredible. There.
I think they used four IX cameras. They were huge
and heavy and bulky, seventy milimeter cameras.
Speaker 4: That's incredible. There were I think they used four IX cameras.
They were huge and heavy and bulky.
Speaker 2: Five hundred million dollars apiece, no, sorry, five sorry, got
my war drone five hundred thousand dollars a piece, yes,
and one of them was destroyed during the Joker Bazooka
scene under the street in that and another one was
destroyed in The Dark Knight Rises when Selena Kyle runs
over it with the motorcycles. Basically a million dollars worth
of lost cameras in just a couple of accidents. But
that's those cameras are why you get those incredible city
scope scenes of Gotham, which is actually Chicago, but it's incredible. Yeah,
it gives you a much taller picture. And there's twenty
in the Dark Knight. There's twenty eight minutes of IMAX
footage and that includes the semi flip, which is awesome,
awesome and not cgi they flipped a freaking Simi And
how are you going to get a semi going vertical.
You got to have Imax. That's the aspect ratio that's
going to give you something tall enough to get that.
And then the other is all of that opening scene
with the bank robbery and the Joker. Yeah, it's fantastic,
so good, so clear and crisp man. I love it
that opening scene, and I know will break down the movie,
but it's such a rush to start the movie with
a bank robbery heist that could be its own movie. Yeah,
let me touch on that real quick. Okay, I just
want to say this now. So I recognize the mask,
and it took me a while to figure out where
I had recognized it from. It's from a Stanley Cooper
movie called The Killing. The Guys. It's got the guy
who's in He's also in Doctor Strangelove. He's the dirty
cop and the Godfather. He's the main character in this one.
This is the one that I mentioned way back when
we were talking about Rodney Daingerfield and Cadashac. Rodney Dangerfield's
first appearance in a movie is like as an extra
at a bar in The Killing, which involves a bank
robbery gone wrong, where they wear clown mask and it's
this exact clown mask. But then watching something and they're like, oh,
this mask was inspired by the clown mask that Caesar
Romero wore in one of the Batman episodes where he's
like doing the opera singer thing, and I'm like, wait
a minute, can't be both. Well, it is. It's that
mask from The Killing, but painted with the face paint
like the one from Caesar Romera. Yes, Caesara Ramera is
a guy who played Joker in the Batman sixty sixth series. Yes, Hello, kiddies,
gonna Meet the Joker, which our buddies Brad and Jeff
did an episode at the film by On the Killing
by Stanley Kubrick. If you had an interest to check
that out, Yeah, definitely check out a film. That's where
I got my information about Rodney Dangefield, a film by
Dot Dot. Yep, great podcast. So I just want to
take a step back here, right, how many hundreds of
millions of dollars Warner Brothers puts on the line to
make Batman begins? Right? With a guy who's directed two
movies if you don't count the cheap you know, I
filmed this with my buddies on the weekend thing that
he did to first start out right, He's done two movies.
One of them is an Oscar movie, but it's not
a big budget movie. Sure, he's an indie filmmaker and
they're trusting him with the Batman franchise. Is that nuts?
That is nuts? It is nuts. You want to get nuts?
You're exactly right, I mean, let's get nuts. I don't
really understand it.
Speaker 4: But in both of these series, they turned the Batman
franchise over to Tim Burton, who had done Pee's Big
Adventure in beel Juice to not exactly action movies, Nope,
not comic goood not certainly not superhero movies. And then
for Nolan, who had done Memento and Insomnia, not superhero movies. No, right,
And they're their own money like crazy at these Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so you listen to the producers and they talk
about how there just was never any doubt. It's like
they got ninety percent finished with filming the movie and
suddenly somebody was like, what had happened if this had
worked out? And they're like, never even occurred to us. Gosh.
And it's kind of the same thing with Tim Burton.
I mean, they had to guide him, but they really
let him create his own world. And it's because this
is another quote from David es Gooyer, hire good people
and get them out of the way. Yeah, And that's
what they did in these two circumstances. They trusted their director,
Tim Burton, they trusted their director Christopher Nolan, and what
resulted were five of the most profitable movies in history.
It's really amazing when a studio lets artists work. Yeah,
and you and I have talked many times that movies
are not as good as they used to be because
the studio gets in the way and they don't let
artists work. The first four days of The Dark Knight
like filming, they didn't film one shot. Did you hear this? No,
first four days okay, they.
Speaker 4: Screened two movies a day with the entire cast because
they wanted to get the tone right.
Speaker 2: Now. Imagine you're a Warner Brothers studio exact and you're like, wait, wait,
we're not filming where everybody's just sitting around watching movies,
and you call the director.
Speaker 4: He's like, well, yeah, it's important to get the tone right.
So here's what they watched, Heat nineteen ninety five, Cat
People nineteen forty two. They watched Citizen Kane nineteen forty one,
King Kong nineteen thirty three, Batman Begins two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: Logically, yes, Black Sunday from nineteen seventy seven, A Clockwork
Orange nineteen seventy one. Absolutely, and Still Logs seventeen, nineteen
fifty three. Two movies a day get the tone right.
Before that happened, Jonathan was writing the character of the
Joker and Christopher Nolan does the same thing. He's like,
here's the movie that you need to watch to understand
the Joker. The movie The Testament of Doctor Mabouse by
Fritz Lang that we talked about in our episode where
he literally was about to be arrested because he put
the words of Hitler in his psychotic villain in this movie.
So what does Christopher Nolan say, If you want to
know how to write a psychotic villain, go see that movie.
And that's what Jonathan did. Fantastic.
Speaker 6: All right, everybody that is going to do it for
part one of our Batman comparison, be sure to come
back next week when we talk about all sorts of
more things Batman. Super exciting. Can't wait to jump into it.
Speaker 2: See that. We'll see you next week. One