Batman Producer Michael Uslan’s Memoir to Be Adapted Into Stage Play About Batman Movie Rights

Batman’s tragic origin story is one of the most famous ever told across mediums. But do you know the origins of the man who put the Bat on the big screen? Michael Uslan — the DC Comics writer turned producer who purchased the Batman movie rights in 1979 with fellow producer Benjamin Melniker — has been credited as an executive producer on every film featuring the Dark Knight since 1989’s Tim Burton-directed Batman. Now Tony Award-winning actor and comic creator Dan Fogler (the Fantastic Beasts films) will play Uslan in a stage play adaptation of his 2011 memoir, The Boy Who Loved Batman.

Nederlander Worldwide — behind The Who’s Tommy, On Your Feet!: The Story of Emilio & Gloria Estefan, and Grease — in association with Legion M Productions is developing the play, which was first announced by The Hollywood Reporter. 

The Boy Who Loved Batman stage play (formerly known as Darknights and Daydreams) is “an inspirational comedy about one man’s vision that became a national phenomenon,” according to the official synopsis. “It’s a crazy journey that goes from New Jersey to Hollywood, comic books to the silver screen. Every hero needs a hero, even Batman.” The true story-inspired show will premiere at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa, Florida, running from October 1st-November 10th.

“Dan’s exceptional talent, comic timing, impressive stage presence anddeep, enthusiastic roots as an unabashed fanboy make him the perfectactor to take on the obviously challenging, complicated role of MichaelUslan,” Uslan told THR. “From the first moment he was given the script, Danhas been spot-on in his approach to the material, and I could not behappier that he agreed to join us on this journey.”

“I can’t wait to be back on stage again, and Batman and comic books aretwo of my favorite subjects,” added Fogler, who won the Tony his role as William Barfée in the Broadway musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and who played Francis Ford Coppola in The Offer, about the making of The Godfather. “I was 12 in 1989 and seeingBatman on screen — how he was meant to be in all his darkbrooding glory — was a life-changing experience. It was electric, and Ican’t wait to tell the story of how it all came to be.”

Directed by Tony winner Jeff Calhoun (Newsies), The Boy Who Loved Batman also features Paul Adam Schaefer (Broadway’s The Phantom of the Opera) as Imaginary Friend, Katherine Yacko (Hamlet) as Nancy Uslan, with Kelly Bashar, Nicholas Perez-Hoop, and Hugh Timoney portraying multiple roles including Uslan’s family members, as well as visionary Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee — who collaborated with Uslan on DC’s Just Imagine — and Bill Finger, the long-uncredited co-creator of Batman.

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The book, which was republished as an updated second edition in 2019, chronicles the comic book-obsessed Uslan’s decade-long effort to bring the brooding Batman of the page to screen with a tone unlike the 1960s TV show that starred Adam West as the campy caped crusader alongside Burt Ward’s boy wonder Robin. 

Despising the campy Batman, Uslan was”determined to bring the real Batman — dark, serious, burdened by a tragicpast — to the silver screen,” the description reads. “Undeterred by Hollywood’s initial lacklusterresponse, after a ten-year human endurance contest in which every majormovie studio turned him down, Uslan went on to become Executive Produceron every modern Batman film, beginning with Tim Burton’s widely hailed Batman in 1989 to Christopher Nolan’s celebrated Dark Knight trilogy andwell beyond.”

“The story of a young boyseeing his parents murdered, and then taking a vow that he would get thepeople responsible as well as all the other criminals out there that doterrible wrongs even if he has to walk through hell to do it was socompelling to me, I knew I had to be involved with it forever,” Uslan said in a 2011 interview for his book.

“When I saw the TV series withAdam West, I knew I couldn’t let it stand. I thought of myself as ayoung Bruce Wayne,” Uslan continued. “I was thrilled and horrified at what I saw. The carwas cool, and they were spending money, but I was so horrified that thewhole world was laughing at Batman — it just killed me. It was then that Iknew that some day, some way, some how I would bring the story of thereal Batman to life. The Batman that was created in 1939: a creature ofthe night stalking criminals from the shadows and would one day erasethose three words, ‘Pow!’ ‘Zap!’ and ‘Wam!’ from the collectiveconsciousness of the world.”