10) Batman Triumphant
It’s hard to believe, but in the build-up to the release of Batman & Robin in 1997, Warner Bros. was so confident that they had a smash hit on their hands that they started working on a fifth film in the series. The so-called Batman Triumphant would have once again been mounted by Joel Schumacher and would have likely featured the return of George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell and Alicia Silverstone as Batman, Robin, and Batgirl, respectively. Unfortunately, Batman & Robin was less than triumphant at the box office and with critics.
If you thought three main villains was stuffy in Batman & Robin, then Triumphant would not be your cup of tea, as it was going to cram in two more. Yes, the main villain would have been the Scarecrow, played by either Jeff Goldblum or Steve Buscemi, but the film was also rumored to feature appearances by the Mad Hatter (played by Martin Short) and Man-Bat (played by, and I’m not joking, Perfect Strangers’ Cousin Larry, Mark Linn-Baker). But really, the main antagonists were going to be Scarecrow and, for the first time portrayed in live-action, Harley Quinn. Except in Triumphant, Harley was retconned to be the Joker’s daughter and Madonna was the rumored frontrunner for the part.
Of course, this sounds like standard fair. Throw in some horrible puns and decked out new Bat-suits and other assorted toys and Schumacher collects another fat Bat-check, but there are signs that the maligned filmmaker was interested in trying something different with his third Batman movie. In choosing the Scarecrow as his main villain, he was aiming to make something a little more atmospheric, including the show-stopping detail: the return of Jack Nicholson as the Joker in a fear toxin induced hallucination. Who can say if Nicholson would have actually gone through it, but it would be the first reprise by a Joker in modern film history.
For now though, we’ll just call it a missed opportunity.
