1989 Batman

For years there had been rumour of a Batman reboot, ever since the television series was cancelled. The trouble was, how do you follow a series that was goofy, jokey, and way-camp. Would people be ready for a dark Batman?

Yet in the comic book world Batman had become darker, and hit books like The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight Retuns helped move this project forward. However, it needed a star and it needed a director.

Tim Burton had just come off a successful horror-comedy with Beetlejuice, starring a very charismatic Michael Keaton. He was put to work to add his unique Gothic spin on a property that Warner Bros did not know what to do with. Burton cast Keaton as Batman, which riled many fans who said he wasn't superhero enough; and then he cast Jack Nicholson as The Joker.

The movie was a phenomenon, helped greatly by a huge marketing campaign which was simply the Bat Logo. During the summer of 1989, all you saw was that logo.

The movie was shot in Pinewood Studios just outside of London and the set is amazing, a wonderful mix of Art-Deco and Gothic makes up the stinkhole that is Gotham City. The story is as you would expect for an origin story, the arc that marks it out is that Batman creates Joker, thus the two becoming linked by a dual psychopathy. Both Nicholson and Keaton are excellent, and the rest of the cast, including Kim Basinger, and Michael Gough as a beautifully still and powerful Alfred, the butler.

Prince did a soundtrack, as well as usual Burton collaborator Danny Eflman; you could buy t-shirts and cups and badges and stickers and we went bat-mad. Of course a sequel had to follow.

The movie had a very large budget for the time, ballooning from $30m to $48m; any worries soon disappeared when the final take at the box office hit $411m.

Warners had a franchise on their hands, and the age of the superhero movie was about to begin.

The links below are not only for the movie, but two soundtracks, one by Prince and the other by Danny Eflman; further below is a link to the novelisation of the movie.


Search Abe Books for  the novel and more, here - Batman 1989 The Novelisation

In 1989 Ocean Software created an officailly licenced game to tie in with the movie release. It was released on all the main consoles of the time, Commodore 64, Amstrad and Spectrum. While you can no longer get these in the stores, Ebay has many old items for sale and worth a look. Click on the link to get to Ebay UK - Batman Computer Game