Despite the declining success of the Batman film franchise in the '90s, Warner Bros. knew
that in the right hands, the character was still a goldmine.
Even though two-time Batman director Joel Schumacher was interested in making another
installment, the studio wanted to start fresh.
That's how Darren Aronofsky got a deal to pen a screenplay with Frank Miller to adapt
Miller's comic Batman: Year One.
That story arc was eventually made as an animated film, but Aronofsky and Miller's screenplay
never got developed.
Here's why we never got to see it.
A darker knight
The Year One comic follows Bruce Wayne's return to Gotham after 12 years of travel and training.
He befriends a young Jim Gordon and the two take down gangsters within Carmine Falcone's
mob organization.
Despite citing Year One as their inspiration, Aronofsky and Miller changed a lot of aspects
of the comic for the screenplay, such as making young Bruce Wayne live as a bum while learning
how to fight crime from books.
The big takeaway, according to Miller, was that the script just strayed too far from
traditional Batman storylines, and included elements that took the film in some dark directions.
Considering PG-13 is as far as Warner Bros. has ever gone with Batman, this new take on
Batman was just too far from family friendly.
Bait and switch
Darren Aronofsky later admitted that he was never particularly interested in making a
Batman movie.
He was trying to make a different movie, and he saw Year One as a way to get the studio
behind his indie effort.
He explained:
“It was a kind of bait and switch strategy.
I was working on Requiem for a Dream, and I got a phone call that Warner Bros. wanted
to talk about Batman.
At the time I had this idea for a film called The Fountain, which I knew was gonna be this
big movie [...] My theory was if I can write this Batman film and they could perceive me
as a writer for it, then maybe they'd let me go ahead."
Even though the Batman movie never materialized, Warner Bros. did finally give him funding
to make The Fountain in 2006, so at least some good came out of the whole thing.
Tough cast
According to the book Tales From Development Hell, Aronofsky's original pitch is what intrigued
Warner Bros. enough to give him a crack at The Caped Crusader.
Aronofsky's idea was to take the movie in a gritty, realistic direction, and his main
choice for the dark, gritty hero?
Clint Eastwood.
"You've got to ask yourself one question, "Do I feel lucky?"
Well, do ya, punk?"
Dirty Harry in a Batsuit sounds like a great idea, but that casting decision didn't pan
out.
Aronofsky then settled on Year One as his source material, and according to a 2017 Yahoo!
interview, he wanted to cast Joaquin Phoenix as the younger Bruce Wayne.
Neither of his casting choices seemed to give Warner Bros. much confidence, and Aronofsky
later suggested that the entire concept might have just been too far ahead of its time.
Inexperienced
With only Robocop 2 and Robocop 3 as screenwriting credits at this point, Frank Miller admitted
he had a lot to learn about the movie business.
He explained:
"The whole process was one of discovery for me.
I had to figure out what they wanted.
Normally somebody like me, if you say you want to make a movie, I’ll come up with
something that will be 12 hours long and cost $1 billion to make."
Premature prequel
Even without the gritty, R-rated tone the two filmmakers wanted for Year One, there's
a chance the movie would have eventually been canned anyway.
Prequels and spin-offs may be a big market now, but in 1999, most movie studios preferred
to bank on sequels to keep a franchise going.
So when Aronofsky and Miller decided to wipe out the entire Batman film timeline to start
fresh with Year One, the studio may have been hesitant.
Ultimately, the possibility of new toys and merchandise might have been the deciding factor
in Warner Bros. agreeing to start working on the film, although that angle didn't pan
out either.
Toy bust
After giving Warner Bros. his and Aronofsky's script, Miller quickly realized that Batman:
Year One probably wasn't going to pan out.
Describing how the studio reacted, he said:
"I think I heard a shriek of horror at first.
They were shocked at how bold it was."
In other words, it wasn't going to be a movie that sold a lot of toys.
Miller spelled it out clearly when he recalled being told that the project wasn't moving
forward: "The executive wanted to do a Batman he could take his kids to.
And this wasn't that.
It didn't have the toys in it."
"Who defends this city?
Batman and Robin."
And that's ultimately what sunk Year One: Warner Bros. didn't feel like it was the right
fit for a Burger King tie in.
That's too bad, because it definitely sounds like the best Batman film we never saw.
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