Alex Proyas, who directed The Crow and Dark City.
Giving it to Proyas in 95 and letting him be in control and with a darker tone could have worked wonders imo.
FUCK! what an AWESOME choice hed have been. damn.
shareYou nailed it. Just like Proyas would have.
That makes SO MUCH SENSE. Plus, if he'd knocked it out of the park with Forever, he might have gotten more buzz for Dark City...
Dark City was a fuckin GREAT movie!! What he did with that movie and also The Crow I’ve no doubt he’d have done Batman justice back in the 1990’s.
Dude's still around, I bet he could still do it. It might actually get me psyched to see Batman on screen again since The Dark Knight.
shareHis recent track record ain’t so great though (Gods of Egypt) he’s kinda lost what made him so good in the 90’s
shareI didn't see Gods of Egypt, but the point is well taken; I saw the trailer and it looked like a train-wreck. Of course, I'd wager that the script for that sucker stunk and getting a guy to do a quasi-superhero action epic in the hopes that you can kick-start some kind of mythology cinematic universe is doomed from the get-go. Especially when you hire a Scottish actor to play an Egyptian deity (although Highlander has a cult status, I guess...)
My gut feeling is that if Proyas was handed a Batman picture and - and this is important - a kinda small budget for what a Batman flick would normally get - I bet he'd deliver something special. The clincher is always the script, of course. A great director and a brilliant design aesthetic can elevate bad or mediocre scripts, but you can't ever spin it into gold. To get gold, you need gold.
Andrew Davis, who would have just come off his acclaimed work on The Fugitive (also starring Tommy Lee Jones), would have been a good choice. Parts of The Fugitive actually have a Nolan-like feel to them with the gritty Chicago setting.
shareWouldn’t have been going for a “Nolan-like feel” in the 1990s though would they ?
Proyas would have been perfect, kept the dark gothic edge that Burton had but put his own spin on it.
Keep Michael Keaton as Batman and still introduce Robin but not Chris O’Donnell.
Scrap Two-Face and instead have The Scarecrow played by Michael Wincott.
Keep Jim Carrey as The Riddler and allow him to go REALLY dark with the role.
Have Michelle Pfeiffer return as Catwoman.
Have the film end on a dark note where The Riddler wins and releases all the prisoners from Arkham Asylum like he does in the comic.
Introduce Bane at the very end in the prison break out.
That would have been amazing.
shareThat's not what they wanted.
shareI'm glad i got to see good Campy Fun Batman movies for kids in the theater in the 90's like Batman Forever and Batman and Robin instead of the Dark and Gloomy Batman movies of the 2000's for disturbed adults and school shooters.#sorrynotsorry
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