Nostalgia softens all edges eventually, and with 1998 now a full 25 years ago, it’s just possible that Batman & Robin is not the blight on the DC franchise it once was and folks are actually hankering for a return to at least one aspect of director Joel Schumacher’s Bat-movies. No, sadly, the world isn’t quite ready for Arnold Schwarzenegger to suit up once more and lay out even more ice puns as Mr. Freeze. Instead, fans are actually hoping James Gunn borrows from the infamous film’s depiction of Gotham City.
Whatever your feelings on the SnyderVerse, it’s a fair assessment to make that Metropolis and Gotham were practically interchangeable (with the two burgs even portrayed as sister cities) in the DCEU. For the rebooted DCU, then, there’s a real thirst for much more “high stylized” locations, as Redditor u/AReformedHuman put it. In an impassioned plea for Gunn to depict his DC movies in a “heightened reality,” the OP pitched a Gotham that marries “the gothic architecture of the Burton films with the sense of scale of the Schumacher films.”
You might think that any post that dared suggest any element of B&R should be resurrected would send responders running for their pitch-forks, but actually the vast majority were totally in agreement.
#RestoreTheSchumacherVerse!
Although, for others, old wounds run deep and they’re just not able to support a Schumacher-style Gotham.
And yet this surly comment caused many to rush to its defense, praising B&R‘s set design as possibly its best quality.
We dare Gunn to stage a redo of this scene in The Brave and the Bold.
If anyone would be, well, brave and bold enough to bring some Schumacher energy back into the Bat-verse, it’s Gunn.
The Brave and the Bold will have to distance itself from Matt Reeves’ gritty The Batman movies, so operating in a Gotham that’s more heightened and fantastical would definitely be one way of doing that, although whether the time is really right for a Batman & Robin homage we shall just have to see.
