20 Years Later, How Batman Changed the Movie Business
Believe it or not, Tim Burton's Batman turned twenty-years old yesterday. First of all, the sheer number of 'I can't believe this movie is twenty-years old' conversations only reminds us what a gloriously good year for movies that 1989 really was. A sampling of 'important' movies celebrating their twentieth anniversary - Field of Dreams, Do the Right Thing, Glory, Lonesome Dove, The Little Mermaid, When Harry Met Sally, and The Killer. The year's highest grossing film was arguably the most important. Not in terms of quality of course; it remains one of my favorite films but I'm not going to pretend that it was robbed at the Oscars. It left an indelible mark on the industry for the next twenty-years, in ways both very good and very bad. In the truest sense, Batman was a game-changer.
1) It made opening weekend king.
Most people don't realize this, but the opening weekend record was actually broken three times in a single month in the summer of 1989. The summer kicked off over Memorial Day weekend with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which grossed $29.3 million over the Fri-Sun portion of its five-day opening. Just three weeks later, Ghostbusters II just barely edged past with $29.4 million over its maiden days. But it was one week after that where Batman all but redefined just how much money a film could make over its first three days. It ended the weekend with a $40.4 million. It was the first mega-opening weekend for an industry that would eventually concentrate almost exclusively on those first three days as the cornerstone for a movie's success. Pure opening Fri-Sun insanity didn't completely take hold until summer 2001 (where three only somewhat anticipated movies - The Mummy Returns, Planet of the Apes, and Rush Hour 2 - opened north of $60 million), but Batman was the first to already be an unqualified smash hit after those first days. It surpassed its $35 million budget by Sunday. It crossed $100 million in ten days, crossed $150 million in nineteen days, and told Hollywood that short-term profitability was a possibility. Eventually, it would become the only goal.
2) It shortened the theater-to-video window.
The shocking record-breaking opening weekend had pundits predicting that it would overtake ET: The Extra Terrestrial ($399 million before the 2002 rerelease) as the highest-grossing movie of all time. But it was not to be, as it ended its run with $251 million - good enough for number 5. While the film had what today would be considered a leggy run (it dropped an average of 25% over its first six weekends), the film was played out quickly enough for Warner Bros. to announce its home video release for November 18th, 1989 (less than five months after the theatrical release). In an age where sell-through cassette tapes were still somewhat of a rarity, Warner Bros. made a point to rush out its theatrical champion onto the home video market well in time for the Christmas blitz. This set a pattern for the ever shortening window, which has been a key factor in declining theater attendance, a pattern that also effectively killed the second-run market less than a decade later. Ironically, this trend-setting experiment was a failure in this case. The videotape of Batman actually sold below expectations, and even the R-rated Lethal Weapon 2 (another Warner title, and possibly the first R-rated priced to buy VHS tape) outsold it in the long run. But the damage was done, and the theatrical release would eventually become a glorified marketing tool for the DVD release. That became even more of a problem when DVDs became so cheap to rent that consumers stopped buying them, leaving studios desperately in search of a new revenue stream.
3) It redefined the modern screen villain.
This honor must be shared with Die Hard, as they both helped rescue the screen villain from decades of general blandness. While there were exceptions here and there (Robocop, Star Wars), most onscreen antagonists were relatively generic punching bags and/or target practice for our stalwart heroes. Quick - name the villains from Lethal Weapon, The French Connection, or Beverly Hills Cop. But Die Hard and Batman made the iconic screen villain all the rage. Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber was every bit the superior of Bruce Willis's John McClane, and for the first time since Goldfinger, the modern-day villain was arguably cooler than the hero. A year later, Batman took the next logical step and crafted a villain who was more memorable than the hero, and one who got top-billing above the protagonist and exceeded him in screen time. Jack Nicholson's Joker made it cool for major actors to take villain roles in popcorn genre adventures.
As I wrote in a prior piece on comic book movie villains, Jack Nicholson broke the mold. Some may carp that it was just Jack being Jack in makeup, but we forgot how shocking this performance really was. There had never been a true comic book villain that was this over-the-top in cinema before. The nonstop cackling, the completely random and wholesale slaughter, and the genuinely perverse pathology, this was all new terrain for cinema. While his campier moments recall The Shining or The Witches of Eastwick, his quieter, subtler scenes actually resemble the work he did as Eugene O'Neil in Warren Beatty's Reds. Unlike Heath Ledger's deliberate, proselytizing anarchist, Jack Nicholson's Joker just committed mass murder purely for the hell of it. The success of Batman and the critical raves/popularity of Jack Nicholson's Joker ushered in a whole slew of scene-stealing villains, sometimes portrayed by actors who theoretically wouldn't be caught dead in a comic book or action adventure film. These days, when high-profile genre pictures are green lit, audiences expect, nay demand, that high-caliber actors like Jeff Bridges (Iron Man) and Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man) be on hand to attempt to steal the film away from our stalwart heroes.
4. Against type-casting is now cool.
It seems like an insane argument today, but the casting of Michael Keaton lit a firestorm of controversy that lasted right up until opening day. Hardcore Bat-fans, afraid that the film would be more like the 1960s Adam West TV show, howled in protest at the idea of Mr. Mom/Beetlejuice being cast as the Caped Crusader. Of course, Michael Keaton was also a capable dramatic actor, having just wrapped Clean and Sober. Once the first preview premiered (January 12th, 1989 on Entertainment Tonight), most fears were allayed as the 90-second clip showed both a viciously brutal Batman and a wantonly murderous Joker doing battle in a pitch-black Gotham landscape. Tim Burton's reasoning, that he wanted an ordinary-looking Bruce Wayne to become an extraordinary Batman, makes sense in hindsight and now is the norm for comic book casting (see - Toby McGuire as Peter Parker and Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark). Thanks to Batman (and yes, Die Hard), modern-day action heroism was no longer reserved for tree-trunk muscle men and monosyllabic bodybuilders. By the time the 90s were in full-swing, it was cool for 'serious actors' like Nicolas Cage to try their hand in action/adventure properties. By the 2000s, it was absolutely commonplace for Matt Damon to be a razor-sharp CIA assassin or for Keanu Reeves to save the bus and then the world with his understated wit and befuddled exacerbation.
5. Merchandise and Hype rules the day.
Not since Star Wars had we seen such an avalanche of merchandising tie-ins for a single film (and much of the Star Wars merchandise came after the film's release). For about sixth months prior to the release, Bat-Mania was in full swing. Hundreds of T-shirts, action figures, collectors' cups, and the like were on every shelf in every store. One cannot overestimate the sheer amount of tie-in merchandise or free media that this movie received prior to the release date. In many ways, it was the first preordained non-sequel blockbuster. It was the first modern film that everyone was told that they should see and that they would like. That's the norm today, with pre-sold concepts are arguably the only thing being made by Hollywood for much of the year. Although, to be fair, that's as much to blame on the corporatization of studios and the growing importance of overseas box office. Jaws and Star Wars were the first modern blockbusters by any plausible standard. But Batman was the first film that was absolutely expected to become a blockbuster.
6. It made the PG-13 into the must-have rating.
The PG-13 was only four years old in 1989, and summer 89 was its first test. License to Kill was the first James Bond film not to be rated PG. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ended up with a PG-13, which was appropriate since the gruesome, but PG-rated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was primarily responsible for creating the rating in the first place. But Batman was the movie whose PG-13 received the most scrutiny. Why should a film based on a beloved superhero be so dark and violent as to not be appropriate for young children? Pundits wondered whether the violence and darkness would affect the movie's take, or whether its 'hardcore' content would actually help it overcome the stigma attached to the campy television show. In the end, Batman became the highest-grossing PG-13 movie of all time, a ranking it kept for four-years until Jurassic Park in 1993. In the years that followed, the all-inclusive rating became so popular over the next twenty years that the R-rated and/or PG-rated genre picture have since become an endangered species. Of course, the FCC rule changes in 2001 (spearheaded by Joe Lieberman) didn't help, mandating that R-rated films could only be advertised at certain times on television and certain ways online and on billboards. Today, alas, every studio all but forces filmmakers to squeeze into that PG-13 bracket whenever possible.
7. Finally, it made strip-mining the way to go.
Unfortunately, the last twenty-years have climaxed with an avalanche of adaptations of every conceivable preexisting property. Batman was one of the first presold properties that turned into a full-on franchise (Superman had tried it ten years earlier, to mixed success). Batman made it cool and theoretically profitable to adapt preexisting comic books for feature-film adaptation. The genie was out of the bottle and studios were soon digging for treasure in their archives. Classic TV shows (The Addams Family, The Fugitive), classic video games (Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat), and even actions figures (Transformers) were all the rage. Recycling became and now remains the dominant form of big screen entertainment. Now, thanks to a lack of imagination, as well as the sheer expense of making and marketing single feature film, studios are all but completely averse to anything that isn't theoretically presold. It's not Tim Burton's fault, anymore than Spielberg and Lucas are to blame for starting the blockbuster rush. But the 'so much money in so little time' performance of the first Batman created a whole new mentality that today grips the industry. The lessons learned included the ability to make money quickly, the ability to cash in on a presold property, and the importance of the opening weekend. Originality in Hollywood is all but dead, consumed by the allure of the preexisting franchise and the convenience of the presold product and preordinained blockbusterdom that Batman first delivered. For better or for worse, Tim Burton's Batman changed the movie business forever.
For more Batman-related essays of this nature, including a detailed character analysis of Bruce Wayne in the first four Batman pictures, an artistic defense of the 1960s TV show, and a debunking of the 'Dark Knight endorses Bush/Cheney' myth, go to Batman at the Movies at Mendelson's Memos.
Follow Scott Mendelson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ScottMendelson
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Thank you for posting this. So many people are bashing 1989's Batman nowadays. They just don't get what a big deal, it was for us. I remember when I first HEARD about the movie.
Also, I knew they were going to cast Nicholson, before they even announced it. It's one of those things, you just know. :)
Just so that it doesn't seem as if everyone has lost his minds, one disapproval for the fire:
Batman is a comic book.
What kind of adult goes to movies based on comic books?
Movies based on comic books with production values are still movies based on comic books.
If it has to be explained to you why comic books are childish and not worth the time of day of someone with pretensions to, oh, growing up, let us say, talk amongst yourselves.
Summer 1989 also brought "UHF". It bombed amid "Batman", "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and "Do the Right Thing", but gained a cult following in later years.
You forgot something. Batman also showed Hollywood that you can come up a lousy story, ignore the source material, and if you make it look cool enough, people will see it. Batman looked great, but muck like Tim Burton's other movies, it was style over substance. That's why I prefer the Chris Nolan vision. Unlike the hack writers Burton worked with, Nolan actually respected both the fans and the audience and gave us 2 films that emphasized things like story, character and acting.
In my mind, there's no great struggle to determine if "Batman's" influence on the industry was for better or worse. It was for the worse, for all of the reasons listed in point #7.
It's instructive that the other points, which presumably detail the salutary influences of "Batman," generally involve the business dimension of movies, the various strategies and tactics for maximizing profits. None of them relate to actual storytelling or elevating the quality of movies. The lesson is simply to find a comic book, TV show, old movie and try to convert it into a serial, money-making franchise with associated toys, T-shirts and other products.
Nice legacy. And, besides, I always thought "Batman" was highly overrated, anyway.
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I love the movie, it's still one of my all-time favorite films. It made me into a Batman fan, a comics fan, and a box office nerd. But that does not mean I must be blind to the negative aspects that the film's success brought about. There are plenty of well-written pieces around the web from people who love Burton's Batman as much as I do, saluting the movie and reminding people how good it is. This was just an examination from a different point of view.
I prefer the 1966 BATMAN. I have comics from that era and that kind of "stupid stupidness" was pro forma in the mid-60's BATMAN comics. Those were the days when BATMAN would make appearances at PTA bake sales, be elected sheriff of a western town, and serve as Grand Marshal of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Even as a staunch 'Star Trek' fan, I must give credit where it's due: 'Star Wars' ( 1977 ) remains the film that really changed the movie business, especially with it's all time gross of $460,998,007. This is the third highest in history; 'Batman' ranks number 45 with $251,188,924.
Even more than 'Jaws', 'Star Wars' truly ignited the genre of the summer movie blockbuster.
I'll be honest with you, I think 'Star Wars' basically saved science fiction in general; rescuing it from nerdland obscurity and making it mainstream. It also saved the notion of 'going to the movies' in its entirety. I personally also give it credit for re-igniting interest in real-world space exploration & science, but that's a pet theory of mine.
Star Wars changed the industry, but for the reasons listed here I have to agree that Batman certainly added the final touches, turning it into the media beast we see today.
A very nice piece, but there's at least one historical inaccuracy:
On VHS, "Lethal Weapon 2" could not have outsold "Batman" by year's end, because "Lethal 2" was not released on VHS until February 1990 (within a week of "Indy III," as I recall).
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Crud... you're right. LW2 did outsell Batman overall, but I should have clarified that it wasn't within the 1989 calendar year. Thank you. I will correct that as soon as my work schedule allows. Much obliged.
Tangential thread: This seems like it might be the place to ask the comic book/ sci fi/ fantasy/ game geeks how Uwe Bolle continues to get work. Is his cousin a studio exec or something?
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For his first several films, Bolle took advantage of tax breaks given to German-financed movies. As for how he got his casts, he usually got his 'name' actors by finding B-stars who had just finished a project or just had a project crash and burn before production, then he would offer them a token amount more than they usually get for a film. Now that the German tax loophole has dried up, your guess is as good as mine.
Hey, Scott, I'm honored. Your above #2 was an idea that I originally floated (May 06, 2009 at 05:25:31) as the reason for declining box-office profitability disputing YOUR two theories: bootlegging and overbudgeting.
Who says arguing on blogs can't make people smarter?
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I wouldn't say it was an argument. I agreed with pretty much every word you wrote. As it is, the piece above started as a 'gee, ain't it great that my favorite movie is 20 years old today?'. But as I started writing about the ways in which it affected the movie business, I realized I had to strain to find any positive aftershocks (the scene stealing villain and the embrace of against-type casting). Batman Returns had a huge affect too, spawning the 'quick kill blockbuster': a movie that opens huge, drops like a stone, is out of theaters in six weeks, but has made so much right off the bat that it's profitable even though audiences as large didn't like it. The 'quick kill' model is the standard practice with tent poles, rendering it irrelevant whether a major movie is any good or not (see - Transformers 2 - it's terrible and most fans don't like it, but it'll still probably clear $150 million by Sunday). But Batman caused any number of terrible things, so I went that direction instead.
Tim Burton is very talented and has made some pretty good movies
in his career.
Not Batman.
It starts out with a some promise, then quickly takes a severe
nose dive after a great Jack Palance, (in the Vincent Price role), snuffs it.
Lessons Batman still teaches us 20 years later:
1. Box office, is no barometer of quality.
2. Elaborate set pieces with lots of bullets are a poor cover for lazy
plotting and story telling, and can't shine up dull.
3. Inventive but cluttered art direction its not the same thing as effective production design,
but it can numb the glazzies like a charm.
4. Rabid A list star hype and ego is an empty substitute for characters, writing, and direction.
5. Spectacle can be as hard to sit through as any chamber drama when it sucks-
yelling doesn't make bad better.
6. If you're going to send up a comic book, or anything else, make sure you have a punch line.
The post modern nudge-wink school of art, despite its own protests, is merely form, and shouldn't be mistaken for content in itself.
Its unfair to closely compare Burton's Batman to Nolan's- different animals. But Nolan's Batman mostly worked on its own terms, while Burton was obviously searching with his version. Nothing wrong with that- nothing ventured, nothing gained.
But the hype this movie still gets to this day is puzzling.
I agree.
I was only two when the film came out so I don't remember much of the hype. I do remember my parents getting me the big Batmobile toy that was marketed by either Toybiz or Playmate Toys (the specific company escapes my memory at the moment) for my birthday or Christmas a year or two later. Still have it, despite a missing tail fin, windshield, trunk and stickers, but still pretty spiffy.
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I believe Toybiz made the official Batman action figure toy line. They only had three figures (Batman, The Joker, and Bob the Goon), two Joker vehicles (a van and a cycle), a few Bat vehicles (the Batmobile, the Batwing, and a Bat Cycle), and a Bat Cave playset. Considering how saturated the merchandising was, I'm still shocked out how half-hearted the toy line was that summer.
For old time's sake - http://www.actionfiguredatabase.com/?toy=282
BATMAN? Batman changed the movie business? Half of it perhaps.
Nice blog. I remember seeing this movie, in 89 at 10 yrs old, on my very first date, lol. It was also the first time I'd been scared in a theater or from a movie. But Batman Returns was my favorite movie forever and it shaped me in so many ways...(you can trace my boots, whips and vinyl fetish right back to the most perfect Catwoman EVER!)
I've enjoyed Batman properties so much over the years...the first two Burton films, though, really shaped my view of Batman because of my age. Most of the comic reading came directly after the films, as my comic buying income was limited in my first decade of life, lol. I've enjoyed most everything (except Joel! argh!) from Batman in Super Friends to the awesome 90's animated series, and my love for Burton's vision isn't diminished by Nolan's amazing work. Bale is the definitive Batman for me now, and Nolan's films are the gold standard, but man, I love almost all of it.
No other comic character comes close to Batman in terms of sheer presence (mostly quality) in so many forms of media. I wish they could apply the formula so successfully with other properties!
This was a very interesting preception of how 'Hollywood' has become and using a particluar film with 'Batman' as a benchmark example of major changes, and not for the better.
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