It’s a sad fact that Bat-fans have had to live with that Warner Bros. attempted to develop a spinoff based on Michelle Pfeiffer’s awesome portrayal of Catwoman from 1992’s Batman Returns for about a decade before they eventually served up the godawful reboot of the character played by Halle Berry in 2004’s forgettable effort.
The reason we got that terrible movie was because the studio was never able to agree on a pitch for a Pfeiffer version. One of those that was considered, though, was from screenwriter John August. As part of a trending Twitter topic for writers to #ShareYourRejections, the Big Fish and Aladdin scribe shared the time his Catwoman pitch was thrown out when an exec decided he wanted to pursue a different take on the character, apparently setting his sights on Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Catwoman at Warners in 1998. Sequel with Michelle Pfeiffer returning. Producer excited. After pitch, exec insisted it needed to be Sarah Michelle Gellar and involve hair-washing scene, then showed me Matrix trailer. #ShareYourRejections
— John August (@johnaugust) August 16, 2018
August then shared some snippets from the pitch itself, which reveal where he would’ve taken the character. Intriguingly, he would’ve had Selina Kyle forget her feline alter ego and move her out of Gotham City, where it seems she’d have to rediscover her other self and embrace being Catwoman again. Best of all, it would’ve featured a cameo for Bruce Wayne/Batman (bad news, though, as this was 1998, it probably would have been George Clooney).
https://twitter.com/johnaugust/status/1030158543788204033
https://twitter.com/johnaugust/status/1030222011077865473
https://twitter.com/johnaugust/status/1030242596151410688
https://twitter.com/johnaugust/status/1030479770331430913
August’s pitch isn’t perfect, but there are several elements to enjoy in there. The commentary on how cluttered the Batman franchise had become by the time of Batman & Robin is smart and that opening scene with the psychiatrist feels in keeping with the mentally-unhinged Selina that Pfeiffer played in Returns. At the very least, it would’ve been a lot better than the 2004 movie, so it’s a shame that exec had a thing for Sarah Michelle Gellar washing her hair.
As for Halle Berry’s traversty, even the film’s screenwriter recently admitted that it was “a shit movie” with “zero cultural relevance.” In fact, studios have only just got their faith back in female-led superhero pics again after flops like Catwoman and Elektra. Oh, what we wouldn’t give for a trip to the parallel world were Michelle Pfeiffer got to come back as the character instead.
