Joel Schumacher, director of the least well regarded Batfilms, dies at 80
1 Comments Published by Avi Green on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 1:33 PM.
Fox News reports that the filmmaker known for 2 Batman movies that weren't considered the best (not the 4th, anyway), has died at 80 years old. And here's what's really interesting about that time in 1997 when he produced Batman & Robin:
Schumacher’s second and last film in the franchise was 1997’s “Batman and Robin,” which starred George Clooney as Batman, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Schumacher’s decision to introduce nipples to the batsuit drew controversy and the openly gay director was accused of introducing homoerotic elements between Batman and his sidekick, the outlet shared.I'm sure today much of that would change, and if he'd filmed it in this more PC era, the press and liberal university communities would be gushing galore over all that, or complaining it didn't go far enough. They probably do if the X-Men movies weren't as far gone as that either. One can only wonder if today, SJWs would actually want to elevate what was a critical and financial failure in its time to a cult classic among the politically correct who believe in hijacking pop culture, which is basically what Schumacher was doing. Having seen at least a few movies he'd produced years before, he seemed like an all-style-no-substance type of filmmaker, which could explain how we got to a point where special effects mattered so much more in an era dominated by blockbusters and tentpoles. His films were not the high art they could've been promoted as, and the Batman movies he made aren't bound to be well remembered in the future.
So, basically, Schumaucher was Greg Berlanti before he became a thing in the DC media? Well, questionable wardrobe choices aside, at least Schumaucher hadn't made Batman and Robin (or heck, any of the characters for that matter) up and out gay, unlike Berlanti (though I suspect that was more due to pragmatism than anything else). And he certainly didn't try to push overt leftism unlike Berlanti in his various DC works, especially Supergirl post-CW move.
Come to think of it, I think Joel Schumaucher had a cameo as a REALLY effeminate kid in the BTAS episode Legends of the Caped Crusader (which referenced several Batman properties such as The Dark Knight Returns and the 1960s Batman).