Today, Batman is regarded as one of the most popular superheroes of all time; the mysterious protagonist made his film debut way back in 1943. Throughout its long history, there have been 16 released movies so far.
The character was featured in many themes. He was portrayed in a comedic tone by Adam West in Batman: The Movie (1966). He was then played by Michael Keaton two times in a darker tone (Batman - 1989, Batman Returns - 1992) with the collaboration of the famous director Tim Burton.
After that, Joel Schumacher directed two other movies titled Batman Forever (1995), Batman & Robin (1997), with Val Kilmer and George Clooney portraying the main character in one movie respectively. The theme of both movies was very cartoonish.
Batman would reach its peak of success when the character was brilliantly portrayed by Christian Bale in Christopher Nolan's trilogy: Batman Begins (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark knight Rises (2011). The three mentioned titles had the darkest tone in all Batman movies.
Nevertheless, throughout its different tones and themes, fans always admired the fictional character. Unfortunately, that was not the case when they watched Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin.
Back in 1997, the superhero movie had a marvelous cast: the protagonists were played by George Clooney (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Chris O'Donnell (Dick Grayson/Robin), and Alicia Silverstone (As Barbara Wilson/ Batgirl).
Opposing them were the two main antagonists: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Dr. Victor Fries/ Mr. Freeze), and Uma Thurman (Dr. Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy). Looking back at those names, it was really hard to believe that this would become the worst batman movie ever.
The movie was written by Akiva Goldsman; he also wrote many memorable movies during his career such as A Beautiful Mind (2001), I. Robot (2004), Cinderella Man (2005), and The Da Vinci Code (2006). The screenwriter recently admitted about the film's bad quality by stating:
"As for Batman & Robin, that one just confused me. I mean, we didn’t mean for it to be bad. I swear, nobody was like, ‘This will be bad,' I mean, here’s the irony: There was a reel that was put together halfway through filming where it actually looked dark in an interesting way. It just is what it is and I’m sorry. I think we’re all sorry."
Upon its release, Batman and Robin had a budget of $125-160 million, but it was only able to amass $238 million, making it the lowest-grossing live-action Batman film to date. Due to its very poor reception, Warner Bros. canceled a planned sequel that was titled Batman Unchained.
Many believed the series was actually dead until its successful reboot which was filmed almost a decade later. Christopher Nolan's previously mentioned trilogy not only managed to revive the film series, but the sequels The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises ended up becoming the second film franchise to have two of its films earn more than 1 billion dollars worldwide. To this day, The Dark Knight is highly regarded as one of the best superhero movies of all time.
