99 Fun Facts About Batman (1989)

Who directed the 1989 Batman film?

Tim Burton was hired by Warner Bros. after Pee-wee's Big Adventure, but the studio only greenlit Batman once Beetlejuice became a hit in 1988.

Who plays the Joker in Batman (1989)?

Jack Nicholson. He had been the studio's first choice for the Joker since 1980, and a producer began courting him on the set of The Witches of Eastwick, three years before the film opened.

Why did fans protest when Michael Keaton was cast as Batman?

He did comedies. Fans who pictured the star of Mr. Mom and Beetlejuice in the cowl feared the film would be as camp as the 1960s television series.

Which producer suggested Michael Keaton after seeing his dramatic turn in Clean and Sober?

Jon Peters. He argued that Keaton had the right "edgy, tormented quality" for Bruce Wayne, and the director, who had just made Beetlejuice with him, agreed.

In Batman (1989), the Joker declares that 'this town needs' what?

An enema. He is ranting about Batman at the time, asking what kind of world it is when a man dressed as a bat gets all his press.

Who was originally cast as Batman's female lead before a horse-riding accident forced her out?

Sean Young. She was hurt in a fall from a horse, and the role was recast in a hurry with an actress who could join the production straight away.

Which actor talked Batman's director out of casting him as the Joker, then regretted it?

John Lithgow. He spent the meeting arguing that he was wrong for the Joker, and later owned up to the mistake: "I didn't realize it was such a big deal."

The Joker's actor cut his $10m fee to $6m in return for what?

A share of takings and merchandise. The gamble paid off many times over: his cut is put at anywhere from $50 million to $90 million, and he insisted on top billing as well.

Which fictional chemical company's vat turns Jack Napier into the Joker?

Axis Chemicals. It is one of the mob's front companies, and Napier is sent there to remove incriminating files when the real plan is for the police to shoot him.

What is the name of the Joker's poison, which makes victims die laughing?

Smylex is the Joker's toxin, hidden in cosmetics so that certain product combinations kill with a rictus grin; Batman passes his analysis to the press so the city can be warned.

Which mob boss sets Napier up on the chemical-plant break-in over an affair with his mistress?

Carl Grissom, played by Jack Palance, runs Gotham's rackets and sends Napier into a police trap after learning of the affair; the Joker later shoots him dead.

Which supermodel played Alicia Hunt, the mob boss's mistress?

Jerry Hall, then Mick Jagger's partner. Her Alicia is disfigured by the Joker, who shows her off as a piece of his art and later announces, quite unmoved, that she threw herself out of a window.

Which museum does the Joker lure the photojournalist to and have his henchmen vandalise?

The Flugelheim Museum is where the Joker's gang defaces the art to a blaring boombox; he spares only Francis Bacon's Figure with Meat, saying he kind of likes it.

Why does the Joker's 'devil in the pale moonlight' line jolt Bruce Wayne?

His parents' killer said it. The film makes the young Jack Napier the gunman, a change from the comics, where the Waynes are shot by a mugger named Joe Chill.

How does Bruce Wayne survive being shot by the Joker in Vicki's apartment?

A serving tray hidden under his shirt stops the bullet. Bruce had come to tell Vicki that he is Batman, and was in mid-sentence when the Joker rang the doorbell.

The Joker's parade with the promise of free money is held to celebrate what?

Gotham's bicentennial, the city's 200th-anniversary festival, is the occasion; the Joker's parade balloons spew poison gas until Batman's Batwing carries them away.

Which reporter, played by Robert Wuhl, was killed by the Joker's gas in the original script?

Alexander Knox. Wuhl says the filmmakers liked the character so much that they let him live, and he returned to the part thirty years on in TV's Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Which actor played Alfred in Batman (1989) and stayed in the role for three sequels?

Michael Gough. The director cast him out of fondness for his Hammer horror films, and only he and the actor playing Commissioner Gordon appeared in all four films of the series.

Which actor played Harvey Dent in Batman (1989), expecting to become Two-Face in a sequel?

Billy Dee Williams. The director wanted a black-and-white take on Two-Face, but Tommy Lee Jones got the part in Batman Forever; Williams finally voiced the villain in The Lego Batman Movie.

Confronting the Joker in Vicki's apartment, Bruce Wayne suddenly shouts which challenge?

"Let's get nuts!" He has just told the Joker about a mean kid who 'ended up with his lights out', and Keaton barked the same line again when he returned as Batman over thirty years later.

What does the Joker do to his henchman Bob after Batman steals the parade balloons?

Shoots him with his own gun. He says only 'Bob. Gun.' and fires; Bob was played by Tracey Walter, cast at the urging of his real-life friend, the film's Joker.

Where was Batman filmed from October 1988 to early 1989?

Pinewood Studios, England, hosted the shoot from October 1988 into early 1989; a sprawling Gotham City rose on its backlot, far from the Hollywood press the filmmakers wanted to avoid.

Which two English stately homes, one a rock-festival venue, doubled for Wayne Manor?

Knebworth House and Hatfield House, both in Hertfordshire. Knebworth, the festival site, got its Gothic turrets and domes from the Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who began remodelling the old manor house in 1843.

Which 1986 film had previously shot at the power station used for the Joker's chemical plant?

Aliens. Its alien-nest sets were still standing inside the disused Acton Lane Power Station in London, so Batman's crew redressed them as the chemical plant's interiors.

Batman (1989) won an Academy Award for its vision of Gotham City, in which category?

Best Art Direction. It went to production designer Anton Furst and set decorator Peter Young; a contract Furst then signed with another studio barred him from designing the sequel.

Which musician wrote and performed the songs for Batman (1989)?

Prince. The producers first wanted him for the Joker's songs and Michael Jackson for the love songs, with the film's composer blending the two; in the end he wrote and sang them all.

Who composed Batman's score, his third collaboration with the director after Pee-wee's Big Adventure?

Danny Elfman. A producer doubted the Oingo Boingo frontman until he heard the main title theme, which was later reworked to open Batman: The Animated Series.

The chart-topping single "Batdance" lifts many of its words from where?

The film's dialogue. Sampled lines from the cast run all through the track, and the film's popularity helped carry it to number one in the US, its singer's first chart-topper there since 1986.

Which singer duets on "The Arms of Orion" from Batman's soundtrack album?

Sheena Easton. She also wrote the song's lyric at the songwriter's suggestion, and the album's notes present it as a duet between Bruce Wayne and Vicki Vale.

Which two comics shaped the tone of Batman (1989)?

The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke. The director, no comics reader, called the second the first comic he ever loved, because he could finally tell which panel to read next.

Which Batman co-creator worked as a consultant on the 1989 film?

Bob Kane. The studio hired him as creative consultant to counter the bad press swirling around the production, and he stayed on for all three sequels.

Before saying 'I'm Batman', what favour does Batman ask of a terrified mugger?

Tell all your friends about me. He has just promised the pleading man that he won't kill him, and the mugger can only gasp 'What are you?' in reply.

Why did screenwriter Sam Hamm have to stop rewriting Batman in 1988?

The Writers Guild of America strike of 1988 pulled Hamm off the project; Warren Skaaren took over the credited rewrites, with uncredited passes by Jonathan Gems and Charles McKeown.

In the climax, what does Batman tether to the Joker's leg as he climbs to his helicopter?

A stone gargoyle. It breaks from its mounting on the cathedral roof, and its weight drags the Joker off the helicopter's rope ladder to his death.

What does Batman give Gotham's police at the end of the 1989 film so they can call on him?

The Bat-Signal. It arrives with a letter promising that if the forces of evil rise again the city need only call; 'How do we call him?' asks a reporter, and the searchlight is unveiled.

Which one-word command makes protective plates close over the parked Batmobile?

Shields. Steel plates seal the cockpit at the word, so the car can be left while Batman and Vicki Vale escape on foot; "Shields open" releases it.

Which hero's 1989 film beat Batman to become the year's top earner worldwide?

Indiana Jones. The Last Crusade took about $474 million around the world to Batman's $411 million, though Batman earned more in North America, where it opened with a record $40 million weekend.

Batman stayed the highest-grossing superhero film until which later release overtook it?

Spider-Man. The 2002 film ended a thirteen-year reign, during which none of Batman's own three sequels managed to match its $411 million.

How did British film censors handle Batman's release in 1989?

Created a new 12 rating. Batman was the first film released with it, but for five years the rating existed only in cinemas, so on video such films had to move up to a 15 or down to a PG.

Which song from the soundtrack plays as the Joker's gang defaces the paintings in the museum?

"Partyman". Its writer came up with the song after meeting the film's Joker out of character on the set, and it became the album's second single.

What did Michael Keaton change to make his Batman seem a different man from Bruce Wayne?

He lowered his voice. The deeper register became a hallmark of the character on screen, and Christian Bale later used the same trick in his own Batman films.

Which two villains did Michael Keaton's Batman face in the 1992 sequel, Batman Returns?

The Penguin and Catwoman. Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer played them, and the director agreed to come back only once the studio had promised him greater creative control.

Which 2023 release saw Michael Keaton return as his version of Batman?

The Flash, released in June 2023, brought Keaton back as his Batman alongside Ezra Miller's Barry Allen; his scenes for the shelved Batgirl film never reached the public.

Which actress plays photojournalist Vicki Vale in Batman (1989)?

Kim Basinger. She joined at almost no notice after the original actress was hurt in a riding accident, and later won an Oscar for L.A. Confidential.

Which veteran character actor plays Commissioner Gordon in Batman (1989)?

Pat Hingle. Three different Batmen came and went across the four films of the series, but his Commissioner Gordon stayed through them all.

Who replaced Michael Keaton as Batman in the third film, Batman Forever?

Val Kilmer. He lasted a single film: by Batman & Robin in 1997 the cowl had passed again, to George Clooney, with a new director in charge of both sequels.

Which star did Ivan Reitman want as Batman, opposite Eddie Murphy's Robin, in an early version?

Bill Murray. Reitman, who had directed him in Meatballs, was one of several directors attached to an early script, Gremlins director Joe Dante among them, but that version was never filmed.

Batman grossed over $400m, yet its executive producers' percentage of what proved worthless?

Net profits. The studio's books still showed the blockbuster in the red, so their cut came to exactly nothing, a case of what is known as Hollywood accounting, and in 1992 the pair sued.

How does the Joker bring down the Batwing after it takes his parade balloons?

A shot from his revolver. He taunts the diving plane, 'Come to me', then fires, and the Batwing crashes in flames.

Which 1982 sci-fi film were the designers of Batman (1989) forbidden to watch while creating Gotham City?

Blade Runner was consciously avoided as a reference, and neon was shunned altogether. Art director Nigel Phelps said the team drew on photographs of real skyscrapers and the work of a Japanese architect instead.

The Joker's actor in Batman (1989) had a contract clause freeing him to attend which basketball team's home games?

Los Angeles Lakers home games were protected by his off-the-clock agreement, which also fixed his daily hours off. He wanted all his scenes shot in three weeks, but the schedule ran to 106 days.

Which pop superstar did the producers of Batman (1989) want to write the film's romantic songs?

Michael Jackson was to supply the love songs while a rival star wrote for the villain. He was busy touring and signed to another label, so one musician ended up writing every song.

Before Batman (1989) took shape, the network CBS was interested in a Batman film set in which unlikely place?

Outer space was the setting CBS had in mind in the late 1970s, when the hero's popularity was waning. Two producers then bought the rights to make a dark, serious version instead.

The gold-and-black logo on posters for Batman (1989) is an ambiguous image, read as the bat symbol or as what?

An open mouth, gaping wide, is the other way to read the oval. It ran with no other key art to keep an air of mystery, after hundreds of rival logos and posters went unused.

Which sportswear brand did a producer of Batman (1989) want to feature on the Batsuit as product placement?

Nike was the tie-in the producer pushed for on the costume. Designer Bob Ringwood had a bigger problem: making an actor of average build look like the towering hero of the comics.

In Batman (1989), what leaves Jack Napier with a permanent grin after the chemical vat bleaches his skin?

Botched surgery, meant to repair his wounds, freezes his face in a rictus grin. The sight of his own reflection is what tips the gangster into madness.

Which comedian lobbied hard to play the Joker in Batman (1989), only for the studio's first choice to sign?

Robin Williams campaigned for the part, but the studio had wanted its eventual star since 1980. The director's own pick, character actor John Glover, was overruled in favour of a movie star.

The star of Batman (1989) took the stage name Keaton because which actor already used his birth name?

Michael Douglas was already on the actors' union books, so the future Batman needed a new name. He opened a phone book at K, saw Keaton and stopped looking.

What did Michael Keaton suffer from that made wearing the Batsuit in Batman (1989) even harder to bear?

Claustrophobia made the sculpted costume an ordeal, but the director said it also put his star in a dark mood that suited the part.

The climax of Batman (1989) unfolds at the top of which kind of building, recreated as a 38-foot model?

A cathedral towers over the finale, and its model cost $100,000 when the film was already well over budget. A producer ordered it without telling the director, who had no ending for the scene.

Which James Bond actor was approached to star in Batman (1989) but had no interest in playing a comic-book hero?

Pierce Brosnan was sounded out while the studio pressed for an obvious action star. The director had first leaned towards a little-known actor instead of a big name.

The Joker spreads his laughing poison across Gotham in Batman (1989) by tampering with which everyday goods?

Cosmetics and hygiene products are laced with the toxin, which makes its victims die laughing. Batman cracks the scheme and passes his research to a photojournalist so the city can be warned.

After the Joker's fatal fall at the end of Batman (1989), what is found chattering away in his coat pocket?

A laugh box, already switched on, keeps cackling beside the body when the police commissioner reaches it. The gag hands the villain the last laugh after his death.

The designer of Gotham for Batman (1989) said he imagined which real city growing without a planning commission?

New York, he said, as it might look if run by crime, with a riot of clashing building styles. He wanted the ugliest and bleakest city imaginable, as if hell had erupted through the pavement.

Which actor wore the cowl in Batman & Robin, the last of the three sequels that followed Batman (1989)?

George Clooney was the third actor in four films to play the hero. The original star had left after the second film, when a new director took over the series.

Which 1988 comedy, made by the director and star of Batman (1989), was the hit that got Batman greenlit?

Beetlejuice proved its director could deliver a hit, and pre-production began in April 1988. One of its writers, Warren Skaaren, was later brought in to rework the Batman script.

Which Star Wars actor voiced the Joker in the cartoon that followed Batman (1989), which reused the name Jack Napier?

Mark Hamill voiced the villain in Batman: The Animated Series, and its producers told him not to copy the film performance. The alias Jack Napier had been invented for the 1989 film.

Which director took over the series launched by Batman (1989) for its third and fourth films?

Joel Schumacher directed both later sequels and recast the lead each time. The original director and star had stayed together for only one more film.

Which mugger from the comics did Batman (1989) demote to an accomplice in the Wayne murders, angering fans?

Joe Chill pulls the trigger in the comics. The film's first screenwriter said handing the crime to someone else was the director's idea, written in while he was off the project.

Which corrupt Gotham police lieutenant does Jack Napier shoot dead during the chemical-plant raid in Batman (1989)?

Max Eckhardt is on the mob's payroll and stages the raid as a hit on Napier, who kills him for the double-cross. The police commissioner had already taken command and ordered Napier captured alive.

The composer of the score for Batman (1989) was also a member of which new wave band?

Oingo Boingo's lead guitarist, Steve Bartek, helped arrange the music for orchestra. Its composer had never worked on a production so large and worried about the scale.

Which later superhero team film revived the main theme from Batman (1989), with the same composer writing its score?

Justice League brought the theme back in 2017, nearly three decades on. The same music has also turned up in Lego Batman video games and in the queue for a roller coaster.

Nick Dudman, who built the Joker's face for Batman (1989), later led creature effects on which fantasy film series?

Harry Potter earned his team BAFTA nominations for six of its eight films. On Batman he painted the villain's chalk-white face with an acrylic make-up called PAX.

What did sculptor Keith Short add in a pair to the finished body of the Batmobile for Batman (1989)?

Machine guns, a pair of Brownings, completed the car. Its designers looked at jet aircraft parts and war machines before settling on the lines of 1930s salt-flat racers.

The Batmobile of Batman (1989) was built on the chassis of which American car after two other models failed?

Chevrolet Impala underpinnings carried the long, low body after attempts with a Jaguar and a Ford Mustang came to nothing. Two cars were built for the film.

Which car giant's $6 million offer to build the Batmobile did a producer of Batman (1989) turn down?

General Motors would not give up creative control, so the money was refused. The producer wanted every tie-in to the film unified under one vision.

What was missing from the rushed first trailer for Batman (1989), a plain run of scenes that drew cheers anyway?

Any music at all was left off: the trailer was simply an assemblage of scenes, hurried into thousands of cinemas at Christmas to answer fans' doubts about the casting.

Parts of the rooftop climax of Batman (1989) pay homage to which Alfred Hitchcock thriller?

Vertigo, from 1958, is echoed in portions of the finale. The director later admitted he had no idea how the scene would end while his actors were already climbing the stairs.

Which 1985 dystopian satire did the director and designer of Batman (1989) study as a reference for Gotham?

Brazil, directed by Terry Gilliam, was a notable influence on the production design. Both men studied it, while a better-known vision of the future was kept out of the art department entirely.

Which design style did Batman: The Animated Series borrow from Batman (1989), as its co-creator acknowledged?

Art Deco shaped the cartoon's look, and co-creator Bruce Timm said the show would never have been made without the film. Its title music was also built from the film's opening theme.

Alfred's actor in Batman (1989) was cast because the director loved his films for which British horror studio?

Hammer had cast him in its original Dracula of 1958, and the director was a fan of his horror work. He was hired to play the butler as a mysterious figure.

Which comedy sequel's week-old opening-weekend record did Batman (1989) break when it arrived in June 1989?

Ghostbusters II had taken $29.4 million a week earlier, and Batman took over $40 million. It then became the fastest film to reach $100 million, doing so in 11 days.

Batman (1989) remained the biggest earner for Warner Bros. until which 1996 blockbuster overtook it?

Twister took the studio record seven years later. Batman had earned $411.6 million worldwide on a budget that climbed from $30 million to $48 million.

Before Batman (1989), its production designer recreated Vietnam without leaving Britain for which 1987 war film?

Full Metal Jacket had him build its war-torn settings for Stanley Kubrick, who hired him after seeing charcoal set drawings from one of his earlier fantasy films.

Which Batman co-creator went uncredited on Batman (1989) and on every Batman release for decades afterwards?

Bill Finger was left off the film's credits while his fellow creator was hired as its consultant. His name was not added to any Batman media until the 2010s.

Which production designer built the Gotham City of Batman (1989), having earlier designed The Company of Wolves?

Anton Furst said he had never felt so naturally in tune with a director. The pair had nearly worked together a year earlier, but he was committed to a ghost comedy shooting in London.

Which horror director wanted to make a Batman film in the 1980s but could not get the rights, before Batman (1989)?

Sam Raimi was shut out, and the producers also weighed Wes Craven, with whom they had made Swamp Thing. The job went to a young director whose first feature had just turned a profit.

A 1983 script that led to Batman (1989) imagined which debonair British star as the butler Alfred?

David Niven was writer Tom Mankiewicz's pick, with William Holden as the police commissioner. Both actors had died by the end of 1983, and nine more writers went on to rework the script.

In the 2024 novel Batman: Resurrection, a sequel to Batman (1989), which villain poses as a Joker back from the dead?

Clayface, here an actor's understudy left able to reshape his face at will, is steered into the masquerade by Hugo Strange, who has the real body dug up and hidden.

Which Japanese company made the NES game of Batman (1989), in which the hero can jump off walls?

Sunsoft paid Warner Brothers $1 million for the licence, and its staff visited the set to study the look of the film. The game's plot bears very little resemblance to the story on screen.

William Hootkins, a bribed policeman in Batman (1989), played which X-wing pilot in the original Star Wars?

Jek Porkins is the first X-wing pilot to be shot down in the 1977 film. Batman has a second Rebel flier in its cast: Garrick Hagon, who played Biggs, appears as a tourist father.

Which Stephen Foster ballad did the composer of Batman (1989) rearrange for a scene in which the Joker twirls away?

Beautiful Dreamer gained what the composer called a lovely climax for the moment, and he recorded it twice. Elsewhere in the score he used an electronic organ in place of a real church one.

Which love interest from the comics did screenwriter Sam Hamm replace with Vicki Vale in his script for Batman (1989)?

Silver St. Cloud came from Strange Apparitions, the comics run on which earlier drafts were based. The same rewrite swapped that story's crime boss for a mobster invented for the film.

Which Batman Begins character first appeared in a comic written by Sam Hamm, the screenwriter of Batman (1989)?

Henri Ducard debuted in Blind Justice, a miniseries DC let the screenwriter write as the film was being promoted. The 2005 film used the name as an alias for Ra's al Ghul.

In the Batdance video for Batman (1989), the songwriter plays a half-hero, half-villain figure with which name?

Gemini wears the Joker on one side of his face and costume and Batman on the other. The name is the musician's own star sign, and the split look also nods to Two-Face.

Mayor Borg of Gotham in Batman (1989) was called a perfect lookalike of which real big-city American mayor?

Ed Koch was the comparison critic John Simon drew in his review. Actor Lee Wallace had already played a mayor in the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.

Robert Wuhl, the reporter of Batman (1989), went on to create and star in which HBO comedy about a sports agent?

Arliss ran on the channel from 1996 to 2002, with its creator in the title role. Before Batman he had written two episodes of the spoof series Police Squad!

Which comedian, once attached to play Robin after Batman (1989), inspired the sidekick's look in the Batman '89 comic?

Marlon Wayans never reached the screen in the role, so the comic's new Robin, a mechanic named Drake Winston, was drawn in his likeness.

What was stolen during the secretive shoot of Batman (1989), leading the production to call in the police?

Two reels of film, about 20 minutes of footage, went missing. Secrecy was so tight that a publicist turned down £10,000 for the first pictures of the villain in make-up.