The Batmobile Page #3

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deconstructs Batman in graphic novel.

He rethought what Batman was.

It's a darker time, it's a very dystopian world.

He needed something big and heavy

and that was this Batman Assault Tank.

It was like, wow.

This was the first time

we've really seen anything quite like that.

I think when I think of the Batmobile

I always think of the classic...

...Michael Keaton, the first Tim Burton movie,

really low to the ground.

When Ben Melniker and I

acquired the rights to Batman in 1979...

...it took 10 years before the first dark

and serious Batman movie came out...

...in 1989, thanks largely

to the genius of two people:

Tim Burton and my dear friend, Anton Furst.

Up until that time, comic-book movies

were, I think, seen more as light.

The only one that I can recall which

was a big movie, was Superman...

...but, you know, Superman is a much more

positive, acceptable character...

...for a big movie, rather than some

dark internalized guy...

...who dresses up like a bat.

So, I mean, it was--

It felt like kind of new territory...

...for that kind of movie at the time.

USLAN:
To get an audience

to suspend its disbelief...

...and buy into the fact

that there could be a guy...

...seriously getting dressed as a bat...

...that took a lot in order to accomplish that.

Part of that is the effectiveness

of the Batmobile.

I wasn't interested in making the TV show.

I was much more interested

in making a darker version...

...more what the roots

of the comic book was.

Just going back to the psychology

of what the guy is trying to do...

...he's trying to scare people,

he's trying to make a mythic...

...almost supernatural persona...

...because he is a real person

and he's just--

You know,

he's trying to intimidate and frighten.

So therefore, the intention

of the Batmobile was...

...to look as imposing as possible.

The Batmobile became an interesting problem

because which way were we to go?

We didn't want to put it in any particular

period. We just went into pure expressions...

...into the car and taking elements

of the Salt Flat races...

...of the '30s and the Stingrays of the '50s.

CROWLEY:
He's also taken reference from

people who've broken land-speed records...

...like the Bluebird, you know,

with the big jet engine.

The science of the times is jets.

We made a little clay maquette

to see that we got that right.

We got the basics of it right,

then we did it full size.

One of the funny things was Tim

came in and said, "It's really great.

The only problem is," he said,

"how do they get in it?"

There wasn't a door. I'd forgotten.

I'd never thought of a door.

[LAUGHS]

So then John Evans and I told him:

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