Into this mess stepped one Joel Schumacher. was not ditching its biggest franchise, but they could not have a repeat of the second film's ghoulishness. He was eventually replaced in mid-1994 by Val Kilmer, fresh off the critically-acclaimed turn as Doc Holiday in Tombstone. Warner Bros. He was politely shown the door and to everyone's shock Michael Keaton turned down a $15 million payday to follow him. Yes, Tim Burton's Batman Returns had itself broken the opening weekend record in 1992 and had topped the summer box office, but mixed reviews, audience rejection, and a national controversy over its explicit adult content had left Burton on the outs with the franchise that he had started. It also "saved" the Batman franchise in its own way, while providing something of an artistic blueprint for (mostly disliked) comic book superhero sequels to come.Īs I am assuming you know if you are reading this, the Batman franchise was on somewhat dire straits. It had every ingredient for a 1990's era mega-blockbuster, it was the ultimate package in terms of spectacle, beloved characters, and genuine movie stars. The third film in the franchise, Batman Forever, was so explicitly constructed for maximum opening weekend muscle that it might as well have been made in a laboratory. It was the 007 or Star Wars of the 1960's and 1980's, and it promised huge-scale fantasy thrills and costumed movie stars in a way that no other series could deliver.
Back in the 1990's there was no franchise bigger than the Batman series. The Joel Schumacher picture was the first movie to earn $20 million in a single day, that day being exactly twenty years ago today, which in turn led to a $52.7m Fri-Sun frame.
It happened in 1993 with Jurassic Park of course, and it happened again two years later with Batman Forever. You had a beloved franchise, a strong marketing hook, and the appearance of a top-flight would-be movie star as an added value element. This is not the first time an opening weekend record has been set on this particular weekend.
There has been much talk this week about how Jurassic World was something of a perfect blockbuster package. Batman Forever may not be a great film, but it was a perfectly calibrated blockbuster machine carefully constructed to make ridiculous amounts of money.
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