Batman Returns Filmmakers Had Surprising Plans for Catwoman Spinoffs

Tim Burton’s Batman Returns delivered audiences a number of beloved elements, but arguably the biggest success of the movie was Michelle Pfeiffer’s take on Catwoman, with many fans still thinking it’s one of the greatest comic-book performances of all time. Both Burton and writer Daniel Waters knew the inherent potential of the character, though both had vastly different ideas on how to offer up a spinoff for the figure, neither of which would come to fruition. Sadly, Burton exited the franchise and Catwoman was abandoned for 1995’s Batman Forever, yet Pfeiffer would return to the world of superheroes with Ant-Man and the Wasp as Janet Van Dyne.

“He wanted to do an $18 million black-and-white movie, like the original Cat People, of Selina just lowkey living in a small town,” Waters shared during a Los Angeles screening earlier this month of Batman Returns, per IndieWire. “And I wanted to make a Batman movie where the metaphor was about Batman. So I had her move to a Los Angeles version of Gotham City, and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. It was The Boys before The Boys. But he got exhausted reading my script.”

Back in those earlier days of superhero movies, audiences weren’t quite as concerned about canon and continuity, so when Catwoman was absent from Batman Forever, most audiences didn’t question it. In fact, Batman Forever even introduced Val Kilmer to take over as Batman from Michael Keaton, while also introducing Chris O’Donnell as Robin. While O’Donnell would return for Batman and Robin, Kilmer was then replaced by George Clooney.

Speaking to the lack of canon or continuity, Waters also recalled how devout Batman fans were largely upset with Returns due to how drastically different the backstories of Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle and Danny DeVito’s Oswald Cobblepot were from the source material.

“It was a weird assignment in that I didn’t need to please anyone but Tim Burton. Before the Internet, you didn’t have to go before a tribunal and say what you were doing — it was just two guys in a room riffing. We didn’t know sh-t about Batman villains,” Waters confessed. “We didn’t really understand the whole comic book thing. I just found out DC Comics stands for Detective Comics.”

He continued, “The whole thing about Batman Returns is we got attacked by Batman fans because they thought, ‘This is only the second Batman movie, what the f-ck are you doing? You’re already going off-road,’ … Now there’s like 50 Batman movies, it’s like, ‘Hey. That was pretty interesting.’”

Catwoman would go on to get her own film in 2004 starring Halle Berry, yet the project was drastically different from any DC lore.

Would you have liked to have seen these spinoffs? Let us know in the comments!