Maybe DC Comics is a glutton for punishment. Or maybe they're smarter than we think.
Joel Schumacher is a competent director. This is the guy that gave us The Lost Boys. Flatliners. Falling Down. 8MM. A Time to Kill. Some of those are bonafide classics. But to geeks, he will forever be known as the man who made the worst Batman movie ever made, turning the Dark Knight into an unwatchable schlockfest.
I speak, of course, of 1997's dreadful, how-did-this-get-made Batman & Robin. And to some degree 1995's Batman Forever, though that one at least features some enjoyable moments (mostly from an unhinged Jim Carrey). A third film was planned called Batman Triumphant (featuring Scarecrow as the big bad), which would have completed Schumacher's Bat-trilogy, but those plans were canceled after the abysmal reactions to B&R.
Bleeding Cool, which is usually quite reliable with its rumors, says that Joel Schumacher is writing a year-long Batman comic series for DC Comics. What's more, the 12-issue comic will be based on the director's original vision for his three Batman flicks, including the one that was never made. Presumably, that'll be four issues per movie. (That's right, I'm good at math.)
The three movies will be rewritten and retold as a single story, with art by Dustin Nguyen. And it's likely that DC will have one of its own writers craft the script for the series, based on Schumacher's outlines and notes. Bleeding Cool had no information on when the series will be published, or even when DC Comics will make its own official announcement.
The elephant in the room here is that one, three-letter question: Why? Why is DC letting the architect of the most reviled moment in Batman history write one of the character's flagship monthly titles? The casual observer might think them crazy.
But consider this. Everyone loathes Batman & Robin; it's a universal truth. Despite our negative feelings about the movie, we remember it. It's an unforgettable failure — and a genuinely fascinating one. How did the legions of people it takes to get a movie made all land on the same page in thinking that Batman & Robin was a good idea?
Comic book fans are going to hear about Schumacher writing Batman and there will be riots in the streets and gnashing of teeth. But after the kneejerking settles... curiosity is going to set in. What if, they'll think, this series could actually have some value? What if it's Schumacher's redemption? At the very least, it may be a trainwreck, but it'll be a watercooler trainwreck.
It may not appear so at first glance, but this is a very savvy move from DC. The morbid curiosity factor is going to propel Schumacher's Batman comic to success.
So we come to the most important issue of all: Do you think comic artist Nguyen will draw the Bat-nipples?
