It’s common in comics for superheroes like Batman and Superman to meet each other. For a long time this was unthinkable in the cinema – until 1997 “Batman and Robin” was released in the cinemas. There is a sentence at the very beginning that had major consequences. Robin makes a cool line to Batman, who annoyedly replies, “That’s why Superman works alone.” Batman mentions Superman in a movie and clarifies that both heroes live in the same universe. That broke the dam.
Despite the failure of “Batman and Robin” and the catastrophic reviews of the last Superman film “Superman IV: The World Below”, Warner Bros. strived to bring a crossover of both heroes into the cinemas. In 2001, Andrew Kevin Walker pitched the project, he is known as the screenwriter of the thriller masterpiece “Seven” or the horror film “Sleepy Hollow”. Akiva Goldsman (screenwriter of “A Beautiful Mind”) was to write the script, and Wolfgang Petersen (director of “Das Boot”) would direct.
Goldsman’s screenplay envisaged the following idea for the plot: Batman aka Bruce Wayne is now engaged, but his fiancee falls into the hands of the Joker and is brutally murdered by him. Badly traumatized, Batman embarks on a revenge trip that ends in Superman being sent to the Dark Knight. And they already had casting ideas: Batman – as in “Batman and Robin” – should once again take on George Clooney, while the role of Superman would have gone to John Travolta.
That may sound absurd, but at the time this prestige project would have been unique. It ultimately failed because the studio had lost faith in Batman and Superman’s financial traction. That was only to change in 2005, when director Christopher Nolan won back the audience with his blockbuster “Batman Begins” and convinced critics worldwide – today’s superhero boom was born.
