Baaaaadman and Robin
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Forget everything you’ve ever seen/heard about the Caped Crusader . . . especially that silly TV series. The “Batman” that’s coming to the big screen is going to be baaaaad .
As currently scripted by Sam Hamm (he also did “Never Cry Wolf”), it’s noir ish, gritty, tough, violent--and played straight. When Batman’s nemesis, The Joker, lets loose his crazed laugh, it’s bone-chilling. . . .
Those are the vibes we got from an early draft script that includes this description of present-day Gotham City: “A random tangle of steel and concrete, self-generating, almost subterranean . . . as if hell erupted through the sidewalks and kept on growing.”
To be directed by Tim Burton (“Beetlejuice”), the Guber-Peters Production for Warner Bros. will be true to the origin of the character, per the comics: Multimillionaire Bruce Wayne secretly fights crime (as Batman) as a way to offset the childhood trauma of witnessing his parents’ violent death. It haunts him still. . . .
He’s got a modern relationship with a photographer-girlfriend and a comrade in Commissioner Gordon--the only one who knows his secret identity.
As for Batman’s teen-age sidekick, Robin (a.k.a. Dick Greyson), he doesn’t enter this picture until the film’s almost over. “Look for more of him in the sequel,” quipped a source close to the production, to roll September in London.
The movie’s aimed at a summer ’89 release--the 50th anniversary of Batman.
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