Once upon a time, there was a plan for Tim Burton to helm a third Batman movie. Now thanks to one fan’s efforts, a new trailer shows a glimpse of what might have been in true 90s VHS style. While Burton’s Batman 3 was eventually replaced with Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, with its even increasing cartoon-ish characters, there are plenty of fans who would have loved to see Burton continue his Batman adventure.
The trailer was created and shared on YouTube by solyentbrak1, and combines footage from a number of projects to realize Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne getting close to Michelle Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle, while Billy Dee Williams is transformed into a dark and fearsome version of Two-Face. In addition to this, Marlon Wayans is brought into the mix as Robin. All of this is put together with a host of glitches and interference commonly associated with damaged VHS tapes in the 80s and 90s. Check out the trailer below.
Of course this fan-made trailer brings together key players from Burton’s two Batman movies, most notably Williams, who played Harvey Dent in 1989’s Batman and was originally planned to undergo his transformation into Two-Face on screen. Instead, Two-Face ended up being played in Batman Forever by Tommy Lee Jones in a colorful, family-friendly way, before Aaron Eckhart took on a darker version of the disfigured DA in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.
Michael Keaton’s Batman Could Have Returned In Batman Beyond.
Until the changing of the guard within Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC management team, there were secret plans being discussed to bring Michael Keaton’s Batman back to the big screen as part of the DCU. According to reports earlier this month, the movie would have seen an older Bruce Wayne training up a younger counterpart and would have spun-off from Keaton’s appearance in The Flash.
Shared details about the project suggested that Batman Beyond would have potentially seen the return of Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle, and would have seen the Batman Returns romance between two being rekindled. While there is no information on which villains would have been faced by the young and old Batmen, the entire project is just one of the intriguing returns for Michael Keaton that will seemingly not be moving ahead.
As well as the Batman Beyond project, Keaton was also said to have filmed a cameo appearance for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Recently, this cameo has reportedly been replaced with an appearance by Ben Affleck’s Batman instead. However, there is no way to know what will end up on screen until that movie hits cinemas next December.
With much of the DCU’s future up in the air, there is a question hanging over how much of next year’s DCU releases will have any purpose considering the soft reboot coming in the next few years from James Gunn and Peter Safran. Whether we will still get to see more of Michael Keaton as Batman following The Flash is something that now doesn’t seem likely, but there are many fans who still hold out a small hope.
