Speaker 1: This is a podcast from Minute Media. Oh I got
a live one here.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody, welcome back to the Shrill You Can't
Be Serious podcast. This week we're tackling the Batman eighty
nine versus the Dark Knight.
Speaker 1: Dah, I've got a question for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you ever danced with the devil by the
pillin night?
Speaker 3: What you say?
Speaker 1: I was asked out of all my costs? Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Here we are for part two of Batman eighty nine
versus Dark Knight.
Speaker 1: You want to get nuts, Let's get nuts.
Speaker 4: Go go with a smock.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's podcast Batman eighty nine. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: And we talked about how when the movie has developed
over ten years, there's gonna be a lot of people associated. Okay,
so I've got a killer list, but for this movie
to work, you have to have a great Bruce Wayne,
and you have to have a great joker. Everybody else's
kind of window dressing.
Speaker 1: And okay, so here are the names. I mean, we're
talking the mid eighties.
Speaker 2: It's it's all the mediating stars, right, I mean, it's
Kurt Russell, it's Harrison Ford, it's Tom Cruise, it's Kevin Costler. Okay,
it's all these guys, but here are the names that
kind of stood out to me. Okay, we talked about
Bill Murray and Ivan Wright.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: One of the things that they wanted was they wanted
Pierce Brossman to be Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: No solid choice. I think that would have been really cool. Yeah, okay,
great looking guy, perfect jaw line, suave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he could definitely played the cool playboy for action hero. Yeah,
and clearly action hero. James Bond Right, Alc Baldwin, who
had worked with Tim Burton on Beatle Juice.
Speaker 1: True, that kind of point. Yeah, up and comer. But
here's the one that blew me away. Okay, and we're talking.
Speaker 2: I mean we've got Albacino, Kevin Spacey, Patrick Swayzey, Richard Gear,
Michael Bean even. But the name that really stands out
to me they wanted Richard Donner to direct Mel Gibson
as Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: Do you really want to jump in? Do you want
to Joe Pesci as the penguin? Oh? Well, that one
would be a solid choice for sure. Joe Pesci would
be an ideal penguin.
Speaker 2: But I'm funny, how I mean funny, like I'm a
clown if usual I make you laugh.
Speaker 1: I can see Mel Gibson as Batman and that could
have been a big hit movie. But yeah, would you
trade Batman eighty nine for leuth Weapon two? No? With
with Mel Gibson? Yeah? No, Yeah, Okay, do you want
to talk about their most outrageous consideration for the part
of Bruce Wayne? Sure ahead. His name was Michael Keaton. Yeah,
two twenty one. Whatever it takes, that's true about absurd, right. Yeah.
So Michael Olsen when they say, okay, we would like
Michael Keaton to play Bruce Wayne, he laughed out loud
because he thought they were joking. Yeah, and he was like,
you have mister Mom, right, yeah, and then they're like, no,
we're serious, and he was up in arms. I mean,
he's been working on this for nearly ten years and
they're bringing they're bringing the guy for Night Shift Love
Brookers what. He's a comedy actor. We the mayonnaise to
the tuna. Yeah, I mean, Michael Keaton was a way
out there choice. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He had done mister Mom, he had done Beetlejuice. He
was amazing a beetlejuice. But it was a comedic performance.
Speaker 1: It's All of his stuff had been comedic performances, except
for a movie that he had just done called Clean
and Sober. Right The Wall Street Journal, I know, the
freaking Walls Street Journal, November twenty ninth, nineteen eighty eight.
Front Page News. What is Warner Brothers thinking casting this
guy as Bruce Wayne. It's destined to fail? Yeah, except
it didn't. Except it didn't. So here's the deal.
Speaker 2: So Warner Brothers got fifty thousand protest letters, fifty fifty thousand.
And this is in the day where you don't just
type an email, right, You've got to get out of
piece pape, burn a pencil and stamping stamp it people.
Speaker 1: If you do the math. I don't know what stamps
were back then, probably about thirty cents, I'm guessing, yeah,
I think five, but yeah, okay, so let's say twenty
five that's over ten thousand dollars worth of stamps. They
took the time to write down their anger on a
piece of paper. Now, listen, that's fifty thousand fans. Okay, Yeah,
And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the
people who didn't take the time to do that, right,
but also people who were against it. Were Sam Ham screenwriter, Yeah,
Bob Kine, creator of Batman, and Michael Uslin.
Speaker 2: When the guy had been babying this for ten years,
seeing it through, bringing it, dragging it to the finish line,
and Tim Burton says, no, we're doing this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Tim Burton had enough sway to make it happen.
A guy again with two movies, one of which was
a pee wee Herman movie, Are you kidding me? That's nuts?
A guy with two movies says it's gonna Michael Keaton,
or it's gonna be Michael Keaton. How about that right now?
I'll note whenever they announced Robert Paniston as the new
Bruce Wayne slash Batman, Yes, the same reaction happened and
people went nuts. My friends went nuts. This is terrible.
We got the twinkle vampire from Twilight, who's really okay, guys.
Number one, he's a good freaking actor. He is a
really good freaking actor. And yes he is a pretty man,
but okay, he's playing a superhero. So I literally said,
I didn't even know this part of history. I was
ten eleven or whatever. Whenever they're making Batman and I
was not in tune with the making of movies. I
saw movies when they came out. That's all I cared about.
And I said to all of my friends, my guess
is that there are a lot of people that were
up in arms about Michael Keaton. Turns out there were, yes,
a whole lot. Oh yeah, and guess what, great, He's
the best Batman that there's ever been. That's true. I'll
say it again, and I'll spike the football. He is
the best Batman that there has ever been.
Speaker 2: When we get to the end of this discussion, we're
going to compare Batman's batmobiles, jokers. Okay, we'll talk about
all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So just a few years later, they were interviewing him
about this, and you can tell the question was do
you feel a sense of vengeance because his response is, ah,
one of the vengeance is the I'm a big fan
of irony. Several thousand people against the idea, you know,
and you know that's okay. You know, when they hung
me in Figy, I thought that was a bit extreme
for me. He's a funny guy.
Speaker 2: He's a funny guy, and you know he is getting
ready to play Bruce Wayne again.
Speaker 1: And Batman in the flash point in the Flesh movie
and people are super pumped up. I hope he says,
I'm vengeance. You know what else?
Speaker 2: When they hired Heath Ledger to be the Joker, people
lost their freaking mind as well. Lost their mind. Yeah,
the guy for ten Things I Hate about you in
A Night's Tale and The Patriot.
Speaker 1: How is this guy going to be the Joker? Are
you kidding me? Broke Back Mountain? Broke Back Mountain. It
got him the part, that's exactly right. Christopher Nolan saw
that and said, this is a guy who's willing to
take a risk. This is my guy. He actually wanted
him for Batman. He was one of the original considerations
when they were casting Batman begins. Heath Ledger was a
guy that Christopher Nolan wanted, and Heath Ledger turned it down.
I don't want to be Batman. This is a guy
for a young actor. I mean, you see this more
with older actors. But he was a young actor at
the time. He would only do a movie every few years.
He wasn't out there constantly pumping it. He was a
guy who found the right movie. He said he would
do a movie who'd take a break and go long
enough until he got hungry for it again and was
at that point he would decide what movie he wanted
to do. Fortunately for the rest of us, that happened
to happen back in about two thousand and seven. Yeah, yeah,
you know what he said when they asked him, why
didn't you pursue that? Bruce Wayne Roll, he said, I'm
like a dog. Jes carrs all right, let's talk about
the Joker. Okay, eighty nine Joker, And.
Speaker 4: Now, folks, it's time for who do you trust?
Speaker 1: Money, money, money, Who do you trust me? I'm giving
away three money? And where is that man.
Speaker 2: One of the movies that sort of gave birth to
Jack Nicholson being the Joker is The Witches of eastrog Right, Okay,
I don't know.
Speaker 1: If you remember that.
Speaker 2: I had Susan Strand and Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman herself.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, the producer of that movie was John.
Speaker 2: Peters, and he and Nicholson worked together, but they didn't
really like each other, but he knew he's going to
be great as the Joker.
Speaker 1: Well, they were both probably chasing the same tale. John Peters,
world famous at Chasing Dale. Yes, mister hairdresser, himself. So
here are the names that they wanted to be the joker.
Speaker 2: Okay, And like I said, many names associated with this, okay,
Christopher Lloyd, David Bowie, Tim Curry, William Dafoe, Robert de Niro.
But the big ones, the people that came the closest,
are John Lithgow Okay, Robin Williams, and then of course
Jack Nicholson.
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholson was always there, the number one, never rote
another man's repart. So the way that they did this
was rather deceptive, and I feel a little bit sorry
for Robin Williams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they screwed him over, yes, because they used him
as bait.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: So when they talked to Nicholson, Nichols like, yeah, it
sounds kind of fun. Yeah, you know, it sounds kind
of fun, but I don't really know. And so they
go to Robin Williams and Robin Williams says, yeah, I
want to do that, So he commits to the project. Now,
so they go to Jack Nicholson and they're like, hey, listen,
you want to do this or you don't want to
do this. Robin Williams is committed, and that's when Jack
steps back into the picture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so before before he gave the official yes, he
had Peter Gouber and Tim Burton come out to his
little ranch, right and they get there and Jack's like,
let's scoop for a ride on the horses, and Tim
Burton's like, I don't. I don't ride horses, and Jack
Nichols is like, well today you do. That's great man.
So he was willing to get on a horse. He thought, Okay,
I'm gonna trust this guy. Now. Once Jack Nicholson commits,
he commits. Yeah, he's all in. He's not Bill Murray
who will flake out on. He's not Chevy Chase. He
is a guy who will follow the direction that he
has given once he's committed to that director. You know
what else Robin Williams missed out on. They went to
Robin Williams to play the Riddler for Batman Forever.
Speaker 2: I keep bringing up Batman Forever. But he couldn't commit
to that as well. He kind of toyed with him
and didn't ever commit. So that had his feelings hurt
a little bit of he was mad at Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, but here's the here's one of the things I
want to talk about before we get off casting. But
the amount of money that Jack Nicholson made on Batman
is obscene.
Speaker 1: It is important to note because it shows the foresight
of Jack Nicholson. He took a lower paycheck than he
normally would. I mean, this is a guy who's the
number one guy. I mean, tying his name to this
movie made it something that people got freaking excited about.
You saw him at the end of that trailer. Wait,
do they get a load to me? Yeah? Oh crap,
I'm going to go see that movie the day it
comes out, right, So he saw that, He's like, I
know I'm gonna make this movie, and I know this
movie is going to be good, so give me numbers
on the back end. So he took a I think
what was it like, normally was a ten million pay day.
He took six, and then he.
Speaker 2: Got a percentage of the box office and the toys
for Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Forever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the result was something to the tune of ninety
million dollars and he probably got screwed out of some money.
That's right, that's right. A quick side note on that
Raileota was approached.
Speaker 2: To play the Joker. They talked to him about playing
the Joker. They talked to him about playing two Face
for Batman Forever, and they talked to him about playing Batman,
but he did another movie instead called good Fellas. Goodfellas yep,
which we will talk about here in just a couple
of weeks.
Speaker 1: That was a good choice for him. Yeah, it was okay.
So we've got a Batman yep, we've got a Joker, yes,
which that Joker meant more money from the studios and
the investors for sure. Absolutely. So who are we going
to have for our love interest?
Speaker 2: So our love interest is Vicky Baale and they had
her cast Shanya Sean Young from Blade, Blade Runner and
Stripes and Ace Ventura.
Speaker 1: Forgot Finkel is Final.
Speaker 2: Yes, Sean Young had been cast as Vicky Vale. And
not only that, it was like a week before filming started.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not even not even it's another story like the
Michael being alien story, right, that's right. It's not just
who can we get, but who can we get that
can be here tomorrow. So Sean Young was practicing her
part as Vicky Vale. She was riding horses because there
actually was a scene in the script where Bruce Wayne
and Dicky Vale ride horses together. Oh maybe they decided
that wasn't such a good idea.
Speaker 2: So she fell off the horse and injured her color bone,
I believe. And I saw her talking about this and
she said, you know, I just couldn't hang on to
the horse. And she's like, it was a picture of
my whole career. I had Batman and I just couldn't
hang on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that is a.
Speaker 2: Blockbuster that could have led to another blockbuster, which could
have led to more things. So sadly they had to
replace Vicky Vail immediately. So, like you said, they had
to find somebody who was available. Can you get on
a plane tomorrow and fly to London. It also had
to have a name that lit up the marquee. Their
first thought was Michelle Fider. Oh yeah, she was dating
Michael Keaton at the time. Perfect except Michael Keaton's like, ah,
hold on there, Phillis, I don't want to put pressure
on my relationship by being in this blockbuster movie with
my girlfriend. So he kind of put the brakes on that.
Wait until the next movie. Then she comes out as catwoman.
Hear her roar, so they call Kim Basinger and of
course she's like I'm not doing anything. I could be
in London tomorrow and here.
Speaker 1: She comes Everywood Studios, same place that they shot at Superman.
All right, quickly, you have Michael guff who played Alfred,
and Burton cast him because he liked him in some
of those old Hammer film productions. Okay, yeah, it's interesting. Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: You have alex Alexander Knox, Opportunity Knox. Robert Woll played him.
We talked about him in our Bulldrm episode Lally Gaggers,
lollly Gaggers. I met Robert Wool the summer of nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 1: You guys tell me that story. Okay. When I say I.
Speaker 2: Met him, I stood next to him. I stood next
to him while my friend talked to him. But I
was at a Kansas City Royals baseball game. Bo Jackson
was playing for the Kansas City Royals, so that was
a big ticket at the time. Sure, And this is
like July of eighty nine, and they're standing next to
me is Robert freaking Woll Alexander Knox, and he's just
watching batting practice just like any old person. And I
nudge my friend, I'm like, that's the dude from Batman
and Bulder, He's like, let's go.
Speaker 1: Talk to him. So I stood next to him while
he talked to him. Anyway, nice guy. So after Alexander Knox,
let's talk about Harvey Dent because Harvey Dent is in
this movie. Yeah, they hired Billy D. Williams to play
Harvey Dentrisian Hell, what have we here?
Speaker 2: But they looked at Don Johnson, which I think could
have been interesting. Oh for sure, William Peterson, who you
remember from our Young Guns episode. They liked the fact
that Billy D. Williams was black because they wanted to
do this kind of black and white half and half
two face.
Speaker 1: Things, right, Okay, And Billy D.
Speaker 2: Williams is like, yeah, I'll come on do this thing
because I know two faces coming right right.
Speaker 1: Well, they recast him in Batman three when Joel Schumacher
took over. One other part I want to talk is
the part of Robin.
Speaker 2: Well what Robin was originally in the script for Batman
eighty nine.
Speaker 1: And they even talk to people I know. Keifer Solin
was really close. Okay. They talked to Michael J. Fox.
We talked about Eddie Murphy, Yeah right, They talked to
all these guys they wanted Robin in it, and then.
Speaker 2: They thought, no, it's too confused and too convoluted, too much.
Speaker 1: Cut Robin out. And so yeah, Tim Burton was like,
when we decided to take Robin out of the script,
there wasn't anybody who went, oh no, It was all
just that we don't need this. And as it turns out,
it actually makes sense because for the first year there
was no Robin Batman operated alone. We got Batman and
Robin in nineteen ninety five and Batman forever. One other
person I want to mention real quick was the role
of Alicia. I'm no Picasso, but do you like it? Right? Right? Right?
Speaker 2: That was Jack Napier's girlfriend, okay, played by Jerry Hall,
who was married to Mick Jagger at the moment, right, okay,
And so she was a model, she's pretty, she's long
and leggy.
Speaker 1: Whatever. One of the people that they looked at for
the role of Alicia was Patsy Kinset. Don't ring a bell,
no leith a weapon. Two Riggs's girlfriend, Rika von Hagendas,
No vandon has it's Dutch.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, South African. Yeah, I thought that was interesting.
But she chose to do Leith's weapon two instead, I'll
take it. And then finally, for the role of Carl Grissom,
they hired Jack Palance. Who else could be Jack Nicholson's boss.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's such a fantastic and short performance. I
love it. You, oh my number one god, you on
my number one guy.
Speaker 2: Apparently he was kind of a jerk to Tim Burton
while on the set. All right, all right, you want
to flip back to casting for a Dark Knight. Yeah,
Dark Knight is a little different because we already.
Speaker 1: Had Batman begins. Yeah, we've got Batman, so we.
Speaker 2: Already have Christian Bale. We knew we needed the Joker.
Speaker 1: So here are the people that they talked about possibly
as the Joker. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, when you talk to Christopher Nolan, he says, Heath
Ledger all the way, Okay, the whole time. But the
names on the paper are interesting enough. We got to
talk about okay, William Defoe, Steve Carrell, really yes, adri
and Brody John Jarrett, Don Johnson for the Joker. Okay,
and back again Robin Williams. Wow for a second shot,
said the Joker, and still.
Speaker 1: Didn't get it. I would have loved to have seen it, Yeah,
but I wouldn't trade it.
Speaker 2: He had been in Insomnia with Christopher Nolan.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So whenever they started casting on this, it
was actually Heath Ledger who had rejected, but he reached
out to Christopher Nolan and said, hey, I'm kind of interested.
Would you mind sitting down and talking to me for
a little while, And so Christopher Nolan goes over to
his house. They meet up and they start discussing their
ideas of what the Joker is supposed to be with
the right way to do the jokers for this movie,
and they're seeing totally eye to eye. Go back to
ripping off nod dealers. No, no, no, no, you you
complete me. They talked about the character of Alex from
a Clockwork Orange in the movie, they talked about him
in the book, and they talked about said visious f authority,
anarchy kind of style, and sex pistols. Yeah. So the
Joker in the Dark Night is a special kind of anarchy.
It's called illegalism. It is premised on the rejection of
law and the moral standards reflected by law. Illegalists contend
that both written law and standards of morality perpetuate and
produced capitalist thought. Which they find oppressive and explosive. And
that is the philosophy line of the Joker. And the
nice thing about this, and this is important, I think,
is they weren't doing a Joker origin story, which is
what you got in Batman aid and I right. What
they wanted was for the Joker to come fully formed
and you see the rise of the Joker, not the
origin of the Joker, which is perfect. Now, as you mentioned,
there were several guys considered, but every single one of
them was afraid to come to this role. You know why,
Jack Nicholson, Jack freaking Nicholson. That's right, Jack, Jack is dead,
my friend, you can call me Joker. How are you
going to fill those shoes? And so what he Fledger
did was he sat alone in his apartment for a
month by himself and kept a diary of what he
thought the thoughts of Joker would be.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about his voice for a second. So you
have these distinct voice, you know, he Fledgers from Australia. Right,
there's no trace of that accent, or really any accent.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: There is a clip of Tom Waits, famous singer songwriter,
appearing I believe on the Dick Cabot show.
Speaker 3: I have a growing level of popularity throughout the Intercottinelly,
the United States, Japan, and I travel extensively in Europe
as well.
Speaker 1: I have a growing popularity North America. He nails it, right,
It sounds exactly you like it. It is very similar,
for sure.
Speaker 2: And he's got that low kind of it's really odd voice,
disturbing right.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: One of the things I want to talk about real
quick is the Glasgow smile.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think the interesting thing again, we go back
to that plausibility.
Speaker 2: Okay, Jack Nicholson's joker severed the nerves, they pulled the
cheeks back, and he's got that permanent smile that's sorry, yeah, yeah, ouch.
And so it's it's effective, but it's campy. It's kind
of goofy or whatever.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: But the Glasgow smile is what somebody would take a
knife and split your cheeks.
Speaker 1: And so he's got these scars on his face. You
know I got this scar? Why? So serious? Yeah? Right,
tells at least two different stories, yeah, because we don't
want the origin story and trust him. Yeah, he is
brain is a bag of cats. There's a intelligence and
a pureness behind what he is doing that is unwavering.
We don't have a character arc with the Joker. He's
the same from beginning to end. We get a character
arc with Bruce Wayne, Yeah, we get a huge character
arc with Harvey Dent, Yes, but the Joker is always
the Joker.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 1: He is bound by his own philosophy and unwavering in it.
And all he's trying to do is to get Batman
to break one rule. That's it. That's his whole goal.
It's his whole goal. What's that one rule he wants
him to kill somebody? Have all these rules and you
think they'll save you. I have one rule? Oh, then
that's the rule will have to break to know the truth.
The only sensible way to live in this world is
without rules.
Speaker 3: And tonight you're gonna break your own law.
Speaker 1: I'm considering it.
Speaker 3: Oh there's only minta life, so you're gonna have to
play my little game if you want to save.
Speaker 1: One of them. Yeah. The scene where he goes in
and he talks to Harvey Dent after killing Rachel Dawes,
after burning half of his face off, and they're alone together,
and he knows the hatred that rages in this guy's
heart it's that moment that you see the brilliance behind
what he says when he talks about how if they'd
say on the news that you know, five gang members
are going to die tonight, nobody cares because that's what
the rules are. That's what they want you to accept.
People going to die from a terrorist attack. It's accepted.
But you talk about killing one tiny little mayor and
all of that. Everybody was great, Yeah, and then Harvey
Dent puts the gun to his head and says, you live,
you die, And he says, now you're talking. It's amazing,
It's awesome. God's so good. He was a part of
the whole process of building the Joker, Like he went
with the costume designer and they looked at pictures of Disco, Zodun,
Karen Stamp and Iggy Pop and some of these other guys,
and they figured out they were like, Okay, let's take
away as much as we can from this kind of
picture that everybody has of the Joker and see could
he be, you know, the Joker without all this stuff?
And they realized, no, we can't. But it doesn't have
to be the same way that's been presented. Like you
can almost smell him on the movie screen, right. Yeah,
he's not the clean, well pressed Jack Nicholson joker who's
got uniform coats for all his hinchman Messi's guy who
looks like he's been sleeping in the same clothes for
the last two months. Yeah he does.
Speaker 2: Heath Ledger applied his own makeup. That's why if you
look at his finger, he's got pain oliver his fingers
all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Again, we go to that plausibility thing, you know, right,
you know the interesting thing about the joker or one.
Speaker 1: Of the interesting things.
Speaker 2: There's so many, but he only says three jokes in
the entire movie. He doesn't laugh a lot like Nicholson
laughed the entire movie, which is charming and cool and iconic.
But he only has three jokes in The Dark Knight,
okay at the beginning, but it's a smoke bomb in
the bank. Guy's mouth pulls it and it, you know, fizzles, right,
the disappearing pencil.
Speaker 1: It's hilarious.
Speaker 2: And then his fake seductive greeting when he comes in
to visit Harvey Dent wearing his nurse's outfit.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, what a fantastic performance. I can't believe
we lost such an incredible actor. I wish we could
see what he would have done.
Speaker 2: We just passed the fourteenth anniversary on January twenty second.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Speaker 2: You know at that scene, let's talk about that scene
for just a second.
Speaker 1: I know we're kind of getting off tracked.
Speaker 2: But the disappearing pencil, Yeah, when I saw that in
the theater is such a shock because I didn't know
what he was doing.
Speaker 1: He's like, watch this, and I put the pistol down.
That guy comes up to grab him and he.
Speaker 2: And then Pencil through the eyehole kills him, and he ah,
you know it's the joke.
Speaker 1: And you realize, oh my gosh, this guy is a
crazy killer. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead
of the current. I mean, he's nuts and also kind
of a badass.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and then they go to grab him and
he's got a bunch of grenades in his pocket and
he's willing to pull the pin on all of them.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But they said in that meeting, he's telling him he
wants half, you know, I want half. Yeah, And they
say you're crazy, and he goes, I'm not crazy.
Speaker 1: If you're good at something, never do it for free.
You will uh half, I'm not.
Speaker 4: No, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Right. In a very stern, instantly serious tone, he says
he wants half, but his desire, unlike Jack, his desire
is not for money, and it's not for power. It
is to upset the social order through crime. He just
wants to watch the world burn got which we would
be remiss if we didn't talk about Michael Caine as Alfred.
Oh my gosh. Now, of course he was in Batman
Begins as well, right, yeah, he And there's some interesting
casting choices there. We get Liam Neeson as roz Al Ghoul,
who of course he's going to be a mentor, right
Liam Neeson. Of course, of course he's gone on gin.
Oh wait, no, he's a villain. He's a super villain,
right yeah. And then and we've got all of these
other side characters that are played by these brilliant actors.
He was pushing hard to get Morton Freeman and pushing
hard to get Michael Kain. And with Michael Kaine, he
sat there and waited while he read the script. A
little bit of pressure. He's like, I'm not trying to
pressure you, but I'm just gonna sit here and let
you decide. So go ahead, listen. Michael Kane. So I
love Michael Kaine and he is perfect as outfit. Right.
Speaker 2: He gives gravitas to that character. We will talk about
Michael Kaine in just four again this summer. Michael Kaine
was really famous for doing something great and then like
a Paycheck movie. So I can't wait to talk about
that Paycheck movie this summer. Yeah, let's talk about Harvey
dam for a second.
Speaker 1: Wait. I haven't given up on Michael Kine yet. Okay, sorry,
never sorry, I just had to say that. Go ahead, Neva, Okay.
So of course Gary Oldman comes back as Commissioner Gordon again.
Greatest actor imaginable, right. I mean if suddenly, right now
somebody over here yelled cut and I found out that
I was Gary Oldman the whole time. I wouldn't be surprised.
He's that good. When he got approached, they wanted to
play the villain, and he was like, you know what,
I've been the villain a lot. I don't really want
to be the villain anymore. Yeah, and talk about the
opposite of the villain. He's the straight laced by the book.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, Commissioner Gourdon, Quick, name the actor you play Commissioner
Gourdon Batman eighty nine.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but he did a good job. It's
a heavy guy. I can't remember his name. I don't
know exactly right.
Speaker 2: The Commissioner Gordon is part of that trifecta of Dent,
Wayne and Gordon. Yeah, you got to have that third
piece to make it work in that second movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so real quick, before we move off of
Heath Ledger the Joker, there's a couple of things I
want to say. Okay, so you know the scenes that
are the terrorist home video scenes that he does right, right,
He's got the guy tied up, right, Heath Ledger. Actually
it's Anthony Michael Hall. Yes, one of the He's got
the he's got the guy wearing the hockey pads, right,
that's one of the scenes. And then there's another one
that has Anthony Michael Hall hanging upside down, right. And
Heath Ledger is the one that directed all of those bits.
Christopher Nolan showed showed up for the first one and
said you got this for the rest of these The interesting.
Speaker 2: Thing, I mean that's that is a huge deal, but
there was no second unit for this movie. Christopher Nolan
directed every piece of.
Speaker 1: Din Get Out of Town except except the Heath Ledger
directed scenes. Wow. No, no, my mind is blown. That
is nuts. Can you imagine that? No? What?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wow, here's something about Christopher Nolan's director. But I just
got to say. I mentioned this when we did our
top ten. Okay, But he's the guy who doesn't look
at the monitor, he doesn't look through the scope. He
puts his face right next to where the camera is,
and he the actors because he says, the monitor isn't
a high enough resolution. You're not going to get the
full effect on the monitor. Wow, the sound that I
get from the headphones is compressed. I'm not going to
get the correct sound if I put those headphones on.
So he literally experiences it live as close as he
can to the actors, and he won't zoom shots. He
gets the camera right up in their face to make
it as real and as in their world as he can.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk briefly about Harvey DNS Harvey Din Go. Okay,
So they cast Aaron Ecker, Yes, he was cast in
February of two thousand and seven. They cast him. Nolan
thought he looked like Robert Redford. Yeah, I thought that
was interesting. Sure, Robert Redford American hero, right, Roy Hodgins, Yeah, yeah,
I mean he's the guy, right, I love Robert Redford.
But here are the names of the people that they
thought about. Okay, Mark Ruffalo, Live Schreiber, Hugh Jackman.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's been interesting, but it's Wolverine earlier, right, and
Matt Damon. I could see that too. Yeah, because the
idea with Harvey Dent is the White Knight, right, Yeah,
Batman begins, he creates the Batman by dark Knight. He's
already trying to figure out, how can I retire from
this job and live a life that's normal. How can
I be with Rachel? Right, that's a big question, and
that's why you get this kind of ultra macho measuring
stick thing going on with Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent.
And ultimately he realizes Harvey is the White Knight. He
is the guy who cannot be broken, which is what
makes his breaking so monumental.
Speaker 2: We need to talk about the breaking, but before we do,
I got one other person I want to talk about. Okay,
we already talked about Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox again
huge actor on a minor part.
Speaker 1: Was written for him, which Christopher Nolan said, I don't
normally do this, but I just had it in my
head that it had to be him, and so it
was super important. So I was really pretty glad because
he didn't. He didn't just say yes right away. He's
really glad when he showed up. GotY.
Speaker 2: So Baman begins in the role of Rachel Dawes. Yes
you have Katie Holmes, Yes, okay, yep.
Speaker 1: She did not return for The Dark Knight. She went
to play with Diane Keaton and Queen Latifa and Matt
Money instead. You buying that story? No, what do you
think happened? I think that Tom Cruise was a pain
in the butt, yep, because she seems like a nice,
reasonable person. She did a decent job in the role.
She's much better looking than the second Rachel Dawes. Maggie
what's her name, Maggie jillenhlks E. Not an attractive woman. Sorry, Maggie,
no offense to you, just I'm just saying. We talked
about this the other day. Here's the problem.
Speaker 2: Katie Holmes looks like she's eternally sixteen. She's supposed to be,
you know, the tough lawyer. Yeah, I could see that,
eh eh, Okay, Maggie Jillenhall maybe a little tougher, still
not you know, she's not the girl that you If
you lose, you lose your mind to turn to a
life of crime and become a super villain. If Maggie
Jillenhall breaks up with you or dies, you're like, all right,
well that was tragic, go find somebody else.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so let's talk. Let's talk about that scene. Okay,
because I will say this. I just I feel bad
now that I've said something, but I want to say
this as honestly as I can. She sells the moment
that she dies. Yeah, she does. She does. And it's
a short it's a few seconds long, and she sells it,
and she does a great job with it. She's not
a bad actress. She's just to me, not an attractive
person ever at the beauties in the eye of the Beholder.
That's all I want to say about that, Okay. But
Jonathan Nolan talks about the fact that with superhero movies,
you've got this genre that has certain tropes, and you
have the audience because of those tropes has expectations. We
think about Spider Man, where he's got to save his
girlfriend and the car of children. Right, well, the villain
thinks that he's got him where one of them has
to die and the other one choose Spider Man. Yeah right,
either this or that, and the superhero always manages to
save both. So Jonathan said it was really easy to
kick the legs out from underneath that everybody expected at worst,
at worst, if he didn't save both of them, he
was certainly going to save Rachel, right wrong, Yeah, no,
And by the way, the address that he gives and
this is interesting, the address that he gives Batman, which
is the wrong address Batman's trying to go save Rachel. Yes,
he says, she's at two hundred and fifty fifty second Street. Okay,
two five zero five two. It's palindrome, like the two
sides of a coin. Interesting. There you go. Interesting. So
she gets blown to bits and Harvey gets his half
his face burned off. Yes, yes, you want to talk
about it now? Do you want to talk about it now?
Or we're going to save it. Let's save it.
Speaker 2: Let's say it all right, Just a couple of the
actresses that we're going to take over for Tom Cruise's
crazy wife, I mean crazy Tom's crazy crazy Tom's wife,
his wife, Sarah, Michelle Geller, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams is
the Fisher. Okay, yeah, sure, decent actresses, pretty faces. You know,
it's interesting that Heath Ledger kissed both Maggie and Jake in.
Speaker 5: His brother and sister can discuss who is the best, right,
Oh my gosh, okay, okay, real quick, I want to
throw this out there.
Speaker 1: I can remember going to see In the Dark Knight
at the theater Saw with a couple of buddies of mine,
both who have moved on to great things, but we
went to see the movie together. So hyper intelligent guys.
Right when we get there, as we're handing our ticket,
we say where should we sit to the guy you
know that's taking the tickets. He says, well, if you
sit in the back, the seats move. And I'm like,
is this some sort of like virtual experience? What's going on?
While he's talking about the bass, like when you get
that deep base of Hans Zimmer and all of the
most it would the seats vibrated, right, So I'm sitting there,
and I'm watching them with these guys and it gets
to that party scene where the Joker kisses and Bruce
Wayne is running to his secret layer, and you remember
if he as he runs through the room, there's this
lurtorous old man and this really beautiful young woman. Yeah,
like making out. Yes, and she's like, oh, he's got
his panic room, right, and then he leaves them, right?
And did he leave us? I went to college with her,
she went to OU with me. Really, name's Jennifer Knox.
She is absolutely gorgeous, was then is now and perfect
for the part. But I had no idea that she
was in the movie. And we're sitting there watching.
Speaker 6: Him, like I know her.
Speaker 1: Holy cow, I know that girl right there. Really? Yeah,
that's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Hey, speaking of personal connections to the Dark Knight, Yeah,
our buddy John Reid, Yeah, who co hosts the podcast Full.
Speaker 1: Of Kryptonite with us. Yes, and he does a thirty
sixth movie podcast. Yep.
Speaker 2: He and I believe Dennis. They were extras during the
Mayor assassination scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, drove down to Chicago. Yeah, so they live
up there.
Speaker 2: And I texted him this week and the code name
that the Dark Knight was film under was Rory's first kiss. Yes,
Christopher Nolan has a son named Rory.
Speaker 1: He was kind of a young kid.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, Rory's first kiss. So I asked him, I'm like,
did you know that The Dark Knight was filming and
it was just kind of a cover or how much?
He's like it was a poorly kept secret. Yeah, we
all knew it was Batman.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They were like guys on the radio going, hey, guys,
you know if anybody still doesn't know, it's not Rory's
first kid. He said that.
Speaker 2: He said that, like that street would shut down and
they would just cover the Batmobile with a sheet. Our buddy,
John Reid.
Speaker 1: Go check out the thirty something Movie podcast and podcast. Yeah, okay.
One of the names we somehow bypassed was Christian Bale. Yeah,
kind of an important one. I don't know if you've
ever seen him. He was a childhood actor. He did.
He was in Empire of the Son. Yeah, yeah, yes,
he was in Empire of the Son. And he was
in Henry the Fifth, the Kene Browno version as one
of the boys in that end. Wow. I mean he's
been with us for a long time. American psycho. But
I mean his name was not a Wait a minute,
you're telling me he was Batman and Bateman what, oh
my gosh. Oh yes. So before he got casts, actually
I get. I can't remember whether he would that he
had taken the job yet or not. But before he
started filming for Batman Begins, he did a movie called
The Machinist. Have you seen it? I have not ever
brought myself to see this. It is a great movie.
You may not like it, it may not be your style,
but it is a great movie. But part of what
he did was drop all of like he's he's a
guy who doesn't eat and doesn't sleep, and so he
dropped down to I think something like one hundred and
twenty pounds, one hundred and twenty pounds. This guy's six
foot and he's down to a one hundred and twenty.
He is literally skin and bones, and he's about to
go be a superhero. When you look at the.
Speaker 2: Pictures of him at one hundred and twenty, you can
see the ripcage through his pictorial muscles.
Speaker 1: There's nothing there, nothing there, and he has to go
become Batman. So Christopher Nolan says to him, gain as
much weight as you possibly can in the next seat
six months, and so he's just eating all he wants
to and working out, eating and working out, and he
gained a whole lot of weight. He was well above
two hundred, to the point that when he showed up,
the crew on the movie went, are we filming Batman
or fat Man? Incredible? And so Christopher Nolan was like,
oh uh, let's maybe you do some cutting here. So
he dropped twenty pounds from what he had gained himself
up to of fat which is where you get the
guy who can drop to a full standing to drop
push up, and he looks like an action hero.
Speaker 2: He looks like a linebacker, you know. Yeah, and you
when you see those pictures of him in the Machinist's
it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. That is That's some dedication right there. He
had gotten cast. He was the very first guy who
auditioned for the part of Batman Batman begins, but they
went through several other people. Yes, one of the guys
that screen tested was Killian Murphy. Yeah, and Christopher Nolan
was like, I just his eyes are amazing, his acting
is amazing. He's just not right for this part. But
I want to cast him, and so that's how he
ends up getting the part of the Scarecrow, which he
comes back in the Dark Night. Small bit, but it's
part of it, right, not my diagnosis, right, yeah, right,
And he's and he's been in like just about every
other Christopher Nolan movie since then. Right, he's an inception.
He's I believe in Interstellar. I don't know anyway, he's
He and Christopher Nolan definitely formed a bond, right, Well, you.
Speaker 2: Talked about Heath Ledger auditioned for the part of Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and so he when they did the screen
tests with him, they filmed it on actual film. They
took they looked at like the Val Kilmer Batman thing
and made their own Batman cowl so that he could look.
And one of the actresses that did him a favor
to read the part of Rachel Dawes was Amy Adams,
who of course goes on to play Lois Lane in
Man of Steel. A quick story on that one. David
Goyer and Christopher Nolan are working hard on Batman Begins,
and they hit writer's block and they go and they
can't figure out where to go next. The can't figure
out where to go next, and Christopher Nolan's like, okay,
we're just gonna take two weeks off. We're gonna go
do other things. We'll come back to this, okay. And
so David S. Goyer goes home. He's like, okay, you know,
I'm set blocking off my time. I'm going to focus
on this movie for this amount of time. He's working
on other projects too, but as every other writer does,
he procrastinates, and he picks up some comic books. And
the comic books he happens to pick up are Superman
comic books, okay, and he gives them this idea of
a Superman movie. What I can do with that?
Speaker 4: Humh.
Speaker 1: And so he writes out a little storyline and he's like,
this might work.
Speaker 5: It's my work.
Speaker 1: He goes, but I think Warner Brothers has already got
a Superman movie in the works, a Superman reboot in
the works. So no big deal, just a way to
distract myself. Maybe I could, maybe it'll help me with
the Batman. Okay. He comes back. Christopher Nolan's like, okay,
what'd you come up with? He's like nothing, He goes,
what did you do for two weeks? He goes, well,
write comic books, and I came up with this story
idea for Superman. Christopher Nolan, who also likes prastinate, he said,
tell me his story and he's like, okay, well here
it is. It's kind of you know, allegory to christ
and you know, there are all these factors. And Zod
comes in and Christopher Nolan's like, can I produce this movie? Wow?
And David Skoyer is like, well, of course yeah. And
Christopher Nolan's like, hold on, picks up the phone, calls
Warner Brothers and says, Hey, here's the storyline. I'd like
to produce. David's writing it. Here's what the story is.
They can the Superman script that they were working on
and they pick up David s. Koyer's Man Steel.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. That's a great story. Fantastic. Okay, guys,
before we go any further, we were going to take
a quick break and we are going to do our
Shirley showcase.
Speaker 6: That's right.
Speaker 2: This week we asked our friends from the thirty something
movie podcast, our good buddies, John, Jeff d bo.
Speaker 1: D that's Meg.
Speaker 4: Hi, how you doing John.
Speaker 1: I've been on the podcast before. I think I can
count as a member. I'll be a remember the thirty
something podcast? Now are.
Speaker 2: John, Jeff Pat bow Right?
Speaker 1: And I would like to say this is my favorite
eighties and nineties podcast other than our own podcast, of course. Yeah,
these are good buddies.
Speaker 2: And here's what they had to say, Batman eighty nine
versus Dark Knight.
Speaker 6: We are the guys from the thirty something movie podcast,
and the bat signal went up from our good buddies
D and Jason. They set themselves the impossible task of
trying to decide between Batman eighty nine and the Dark Knight.
Then they called us and asked what we thought.
Speaker 7: You know, I knew I didn't like those guys. Without
the Joker portrayal in Batman eighty nine, I don't know
that we could have gotten the Joker from Dark Knight.
Because Nicholson leaned a little bit more Caesar Romero. It
kind of took that idea of the Joker off the table,
so that when Dark Knight rolled around, they had to
do something different. Now, the tone of the movie probably
would have for a more demented Joker anyway, but it
definitely took the clownish part of it out of the equation. Now,
how do you choose between the two movies. I don't know,
but I think for me, I think I would have
to say Batman eighty nine Lock it in Spike the Football,
as Jason likes to say.
Speaker 8: I mean, both movies are just incredible interpretations on the theme.
I mean, I've got the nostalgia for the eighty nine Batman.
That was one of the first adult movies that I
remember going and seeing with my dad in the theater.
And you know, Michael Keaton just as amazing as Bruce Wayne,
Jack Nicholson fantastic as the Joker. So you have those
wonderful casts. The music is incredible in eighty nine Batman,
the Danny Elfman score, the Prince A soundtrack, and the vehicles,
I mean, the bat Wing and the Batmobile were awesome,
and it had that ethos to it which was just
so refreshing to see. So there's just so many amazing
things in that movie that I it would be hard
not to say, Oh, that's the one that I lean towards.
The Chris Nolan Batman. I mean that was like when
those came out, Wow, this is so different, And I
think it's because it leans so much into the real
and as awesome as Jack Nicholson's joker is. How do
you ignore Heath Ledger's joker?
Speaker 6: You narrow down? You have a vote?
Speaker 8: Well, didn't I already give the vote? I'm sorry, it's
breaking up, John. Why don't you go to the next person?
But I already said my vote.
Speaker 7: I'm reviewing the transcript, and no, there's no vote given.
Speaker 6: That's what I thought.
Speaker 4: You reject your reality and substitutes his own.
Speaker 6: There we go, all right, So we have a no
vote from pat.
Speaker 4: Nineteen eighty nine. All the way. It's a classic. It's
quote unquote the original as far as I'm concerned. There's
just so much amazing stuff in there. Nicholson and Keaton
are great. Some lines from it that I still use weekly.
It's gotta be eighty nine for me.
Speaker 8: This town needs an enema.
Speaker 6: Aesthetically, everything is in Batman eighty nine. That's my favorite batmobile.
Of all of the batmobiles in existence, other than maybe
the sixties TV show, the eighty nine Batman batmobile is
my absolute favorite. Actually, I think I have a model
of it. Yep, I have a model of it back
here on the shelf. The last thing any of us
had ever seen was the campy sixties Batman, and you
know what you saw in the super Friends cartoon on
Saturday mornings. And then we got to see this Batman,
which was dark and serious, still a little campy left
in there. It was the first one to bring something
new like that and really make Batman dark again. And
then The Dark Knight. It's an amazing movie. It is
a such a different Joker than we get from any
other iteration. All Right, I'm gonna be the sacrilegious one.
I might say The Dark Knight because I'm not taking
anything away from Batman eighty nine, because it's just as amazing.
But Heath Ledger's performance is outstanding. I don't know. I
think the overall story of The Dark Knight is just
a little bit more compelling to me. There's just the
layers of plot wise, that's I think just more interesting
and more compell as a movie watcher, Jason and d
Hopefully that helps I don't know if that helps you
make a decision or if your decision is already made.
You've got four other opinions if you want to throw
those into the mix, And so hopefully that helps out, guys.
So We do not envy you the task of having
to make a decision between Batman eight nine and the
Dark Knight. But good luck, and as we always say,
I guess be excellent to each other when it's all done.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think I agree with Pat on this one.
I'm going to go with Pat's opinion. What he said
is right. Yeah, we got some love from Batman eighty
nine from these guys. Yeah, we got two votes for
Batman eighty nine, one vote for the Dark Knight, and
one abstain, abstained, abstention, one abstention. Yes, that's all right.
I understand it's a difficult choice. Thanks, guys, we appreciate
you all. Go check out the thirty something movie podcast.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's gonna do it for episode two of Batman
Versus Dark Knight.
Speaker 9: We're gonna have three parts out of this thing, three
at least, and probably it's little secret special episode to
follow everything up when we go and see The bat
Man and find out how great a movie or not
great a movie this is going to be. If you
haven't done it yet, please hit that follow button on
your podcast app. It costs you nothing at all, and
it does great wonders for us, so please don't forget
to smash that follow button in the face and we
will talk to you next week.
Speaker 6: And now photos, it's time for hooting a truck.
Speaker 1: Honey, money, money, Who do you trust.