Over the weekend, the world celebrated the 30th anniversary of one of the godfathers of the superhero film genre, 1989’s “Batman.” Directed by Tim Burton, and starring Michael Keaton, “Batman” was the first true attempt at a serious, comic book-accurate take on the Caped Crusader and was one of the biggest hits of the year, launching everyone involved into superstardom. But in a new interview, one of the screenwriters of the film pulls the curtain back a little and gives us a peek at what might have been. And the alternate reality he paints is very interesting indeed.
Speaking to SyfyWire, writer Sam Hamm talks about his work on the 1989 classic and how it could have looked a lot different, if some of the higher-ups at Warner Brothers had their wish. You see, Keaton wasn’t the first choice for the character of Bruce Wayne, aka Batman. While he makes for a convincing Bruce, the physicality of Batman was always a question leading up to the film’s release.
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That meant, the studio, in its infinite wisdom, threw out the idea that maybe they should cast a Batman first, before thinking about who would make a good Bruce Wayne. This led the discussion of who might be hired into some very weird territory.
“There were a lot of people at Warner Brothers who wanted to cast it with an action star,” said the writer. “They wanted to cast the part as Batman, as opposed to casting it as Bruce Wayne. You have to make Bruce Wayne work, because Batman is, for the most part, going to be a stunt guy, or it’s going to be somebody running around in a costume in long shot. You don’t need the martial arts expertise of, say, Steven Seagal or somebody like that, because you can fake all of that kind of stuff. Seagal was one of the people that was suggested to us.”
He continued, “He had just kind of appeared on the scene, people thought holy cow, this guy’s badass. He could be Batman. I don’t think it ever got to the point where he read for it. He was just one of the names that was floated.”
In hindsight, WB would have been absolutely nuts to think that Steven Seagal would have made a good Batman. We’ve seen what happens when an actor is hired for physicality and not skill in these superhero films before. Look at Shaquille O’Neal in “Steel” and Dolph Lundgren in “The Punisher” for a couple of examples. Keaton turned out to be an inspired choice and is some peoples’ favorite Batman to this day.
In 1989, Seagal was coming off his breakout success in the action film “Above the Law.” After that film, he would go on to star in dozens of action films, ranging from great (“Under Seige”) to downright horrible (almost everything else).
Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and Burton and WB made the right choice.
