Details of the story behind what would have been Joel Schumacher’s BATMAN UNCHAINED

There are so many great Batman movies made over the years. We’ve seen very different approaches to the character through the visions of different directors, but over the years there have also been several films that never saw the light of day, and one of them is Joel Schumacher AND Marco Protosevich’S Batman without chains.

THR recently wrote a deep dive into many of the Batman movies we’ve never seen and talked about Batman without chainsthey said it started to develop like Schumacher’s Batman forever it was a success and Warner Bros. didn’t see the point Batman and Robin it wouldn’t be another one, so the studio was eager to have a third Schumacher Batman film in the works.

“As the director completed post-production on Batman & Robin in the spring of 1997, the studio hired screenwriter Mark Protosevich, who had recently written a draft of I Am Legend for Warner Bros. He met with Schumacher, who presented the his vision to promote the franchise. in a more serious direction. Schumacher envisioned a psychologically complex approach to the character, something he says he wanted to do with the Batman Forever sequel before receiving resistance from the studio and ultimately making Batman & Robin.

The Scarecrow and Harley Quinn were supposed to be the main villains of the film. George Clooney (Batman) and Chris O’Donnell (Robin) would come back, but Alicia SilverstoneBatgirl wasn’t in the script. Jack NicholsonThe Joker was also supposed to appear, along with the series’ previous villains.

“It would have been very dark,” says Schumacher. “I remember going to the set of Face/Off and asking Nic Cage to play the Scarecrow.”

After meeting Schumacher, Protosevich locked himself away to write the script. What emerged was a roughly 150-page first draft for what he called Batman Unchained (often referred to online as Batman Triumphant, though Protosevich isn’t sure where that name came from). The script was about Batman learning to overcome fear and face the demons from his past.

His two villains had each hated a different aspect of Batman. The brilliant (and satanic) Prof. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow had a personal vendetta against Bruce Wayne, while Harley Quinn despised Bruce’s alter ego.

Harley, a toymaker whom Protosevich describes as “sadistic in a mischievous and funny sense”, discovers that her real father was the Joker. This sets her on a path of revenge against Batman for taking him away in the 1989 film. Eventually, Crane discovers Batman’s secret identity and teams up with Harley to drive him mad and get him sent to Arkham Asylum.

The script culminates with an ambitious, star-studded sequence that would see a hallucinated Batman confront the demons of his past, where he is put on trial by the franchise’s previous villains.

The studio wanted to enlist cameos from Danny DeVito (The Penguin), Michelle Pfeiffer (Catwoman), Tommy Lee Jones (Two Face) e Jim Carrey (The Riddler), leading to the final confrontation with the man himself: Jack Nicholson’s Joker.

“Joel wanted to unite all the films. Tim Burton’s films and his films have evolved to this moment, ”says Protosevich.

“Throughout the film, a rift forms between Batman and Robin, who returns during the final battle to help his mentor. After defeating his demons, Bruce travels to Bali, where Protosevich reads about real-life monks entering a cave full of bats to prove they have conquered fear. In the script, Bruce enters the cave while bats swarm around him. The credits are flowing.”

The standout character of the film would be Harley Quinn, who ultimately finds redemption for her evil ways. He had to be complex, conflicted and ultimately a good person underneath. Although the casting process never got off the ground, Protosevich’s agents at CAA set him up for lunch with Courtney Love, who was also represented by the agency and was interested in starting an acting career.

“I think he had heard about the possibility of Harley Quinn being in the new Batman and thought she would be a good fit,” Protosevich says. “But we haven’t really talked about it. We talked about many other things. It was definitely one of the best lunches I’ve ever had in my entertainment career.

Protosevich was finishing his first draft when Batman & Robin hit theaters in June 1997. The negative reaction to the film was immediate. Shortly thereafter, Protosevich received a phone call from Schumacher, who asked to see his script, which was still an unpolished first draft. Schumacher shared it with Warner Bros. executive Tom Lassally, among only “a handful of people on the planet” who read the script, Protosevich says, noting that the script was never leaked online.

“A few days later, I get a phone call from Joel, whose main comment was that I had written perhaps the most expensive film ever made. Then I remember never hearing from the Warner Bros. executive. I called many times, but never received any kind of response,” says Protosevich. “This lasted a few weeks and then a month, and my agent pestered the Warner. And the next thing I knew they were pulling the plug on the whole project. They were going to wait and see what they were going to do with Batman. The Batman train driven by Joel Schumacher was taken off the tracks.

What a pity. It seems like it could have been a lot of fun with the return of all the evil characters from the past and their take on Harley Quinn and Scarecrow. Oh well, though, we’ve had a couple of great versions of Batman and I’m excited to see what comes next for the directorial character. Matt Reeves’ Batman Part IIwhich will be released in theaters on October 3, 2025.