After the premiere of the fantastic Deadpool, we witnessed the clash of our two most popular comic strip character in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, a civil war between Captain America and Ironman, X-Men: Apocalypse, a zany family of anti-heroes Suicide Squad, as well as the mystical Doctor Strange. Of course we cannot rule out the bunch of series, including extensions of SHIELD, Gotham, the second season of Daredevil, as well as a few crossovers between the series Flash and Arrow, which resulted in the project of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. But when it comes to superhero film projects, not always have they been so popular. Here Neil Hollander recalls some films that unfortunately, due to different circumstances, were never presented to the audience.
Batman '83
As Superman experienced tremendous success in 1978, the people from Warner Bros wanted to bring Batman and Robin to the big screen. Producers Benjamin Melniker and Michael Allen hired screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who was working as a creative consultant on the script for Superman, because they wanted him to do a similar job with the Dark Knight. Mankiewicz’s scenario began with the tragic death of Wayne in a dark alley and continues with a sequence of Bruce's upbringing and training. Joker and Penguin were expected to be in the film, as well as Robin whose story was also covered. The Bet cave would’ve contained the Batmobile, a huge coin and robot dinosaur. All in all, Neil Hollander wrote that this was supposed to be a classic story from the Bronze Age Batman, which would’ve present a real deflection on the TV series with Adam West.
The script was eventually rewritten, the Penguin and Robin were removed, but the movie never got its final realization. Six years later, Tim Burton's version of Batman with flashbacks of the Dark Knight’s origin was quite different from Mankiewicz’s original idea. Nevertheless, even after so many years, Batman fans are still wondering how would have this adaptation looked like.
