Like any highly successful movie that makes hundreds of millions of dollars, other products are going to find ways to make their money off of it, and Batman 1989 was no exception. Take a look at a tiny fraction of the products based on the film.
Behold--Batman the cereal!
The film was so big that it had not only one but two successful toy lines. The first one was by the small company Toy Biz, which also released other DC Comics characters in a separate line released concurrently with their Batman line. Ironically, the owner of the company was Ike Perlmutter, who now is the CEO of Marvel Entertainment.
The following year (1990), Kenner released The Dark Knight Collection, a larger line also based on the 1989 movie. Here are almost six minutes of commercials for the line.
I still have the Crime Attack Batman action figure from the line to this very day.
In addition to toys, you can always count on fast food restaurants to take part in blockbuster movie promotions. For Batman 1989, the fast food joint of choice was Taco Bell with these cool cups! Collect all four! Don't forget your cinnamon twists!
Finally, MTV held a "Steal The Batmobile" contest in 1989. Movie costar Robert Wuhl has all the details!
I'll bet you're now inspired to rush to Ebay and see if you can get any of this stuff cheap. Good luck!
The 30th anniversary of Batman 1989 is this Sunday, so it's time to ramp up the celebration!
As much as the movie revolutionized summer blockbusters and their impact on popular culture, it also caused a revolution in the home video industry. The movie was released on home video (in glorious VHS format, God love it) on November 15, 1989, a mere five months after the theatrical release, which was unheard of at the time. Movie fans usually had to wait a year or more after a theatrical release for a film to appear on home video.
Not only that, the suggested retail price was a mere $24.98 per copy, another massive change from the status quo of the industry. Videocassettes of other films sold for nearly $100, when home video was mostly a rental business. Warner Bros. decided this was a film fans wanted to own, so they made it affordable. They were right: audiences bought it right and left. Many stores sold it at an even lower price, at $20 or even $15 dollars. One of my brothers bought his copy for only $15 at our local Wall to Wall Sound and Video (RIP). He still has it today!
One of the ways Warner Bros. was able to keep the price low was by allowing a commercial to appear at the beginning of the tape, courtesy of Diet Coke. This was another radical change from the norm. Here is the commercial in all of its glory!
Also featured was this animated call for people to purchase Warner Bros. swag, with the help of studio favorites Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck!
The timing of the video release was, unsurprisingly, tied into that year's holiday shopping season, as this commercial for the video confirms. I posted this same commercial during my Christmas programming last year, and of all the countless commercials I've featured on the blog, this is one of the hardest sells I've ever seen!
Not everyone was happy with the early and affordable release of Batman on home video. Theater chains, smaller ones in particular, were upset over lost revenue to the home video release, as the movie was such a box office success that it was still playing in some theaters as late as November of that year. This local news coverage of the home video launch from Los Angeles conveys that story as well as a publicity event the studio held in LA, plus some (failed) attempts at humor by the local news team.
With all of the Internet streaming options we have today, it's easy to forget how momentous it was when a favorite film was released on home video, and up to that time, no home video release was as momentous as Batman.
As the exact date of the 30th anniversary of the release of the 1989 Batman film is a mere two weeks away, it's time to ramp up the celebration quickly with some great material I've found.
In this clip, Michael Keaton appears on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman the night before the release to promote the film and shoot the breeze with Dave. You can tell that Keaton and Letterman are old friends having a good time. I watched this episode the night it aired and distinctly remember the story Keaton tells about himself and Jack Nicholson checking out each other's costumes for the first time.
Enjoy!
Also do yourself a favor and watch the guys' cringe-worthy performance back when they were cast members of Mary Tyler Moore's variety show from the late 70s.
I'm excited to see the new Swamp Thing horror series debuting tomorrow on the DC Universe streaming service. In preparation, I watched the original 1982 theatrical movie directed by Wes Craven and starring Adrienne Barbeau yesterday. After doing a little IMDB-ing on ol' Swampy, I came across something I didn't know existed.
Back in the fall of 1991, a Swamp Thing animated series appeared on the Fox network. I was in high school at the time and wasn't paying much attention to Saturday morning TV at that point, so I shouldn't be surprised I missed it. Still, I'm surprised I don't hear other geeky-minded folks bring it up.
Admittedly, it's not a great series, but for a comic book fan, it's an odd curiosity worth checking out. It fits right in with what I remember Fox Saturday morning programming being: irreverent and obsessed with wacky, gross-out kinds of characters.
See the first episode for yourself and let me know what you think. Enjoy!
When I wrote my article announcing my focus on Batman's 80th anniverary, I also mentioned the 30th anniversary of the Batman film from 1989. I'll write the majority of articles about the movie closer to the June 23rd anniversary date, but today I'll feature the trailer for the film. This was the first glimpse the public got of any of the Bat craziness that was before them, and it's fun to look back on it 30 years later.
Enjoy! Also, I learned the next morning after writing this that April 22nd is Jack Nicholson's birthday, so...Happy Birthday Jack!
Two days after I published my article looking at the several incarnations of the Joker in other media, the first official trailer for the movie Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix was released. I had totally forgotten about the movie when writing my article, but I had originally planned to feature the 30 second makeup test Joker director Todd Phillips had released on Instagram last October.
Shortly after that video was released, amateur footage of some scenes surfaced on the 'Net, something highly unusual for a major studio picture.
And now we finally have the official trailer. Roll it!
I don't know what to make of the idea of a standalone Joker origin story. Will it feel like we're seeing the Joker we know and love to hate from the comics, or will it simply feel like a crazy guy in clown makeup who coincidentally calls himself the Joker? Projects in the past that separate themselves too much from the source material have not been great artistic successes (I'm looking at you, Catwoman), but with creative bigwigs like director Todd Phillips (the Hangover films), executive producer Bradley Cooper (and former EP Martin Scorsese) and stars Joaquin Phoenix and Robert De Niro in tow, will this movie beat the odds? I guess we'll find out when the movie opens October 4th.
It may seem weird that my first official post of my yearlong Batman tribute would be dedicated to his greatest foe instead, but one of Batman's defining characteristics has been his rogues gallery of villains, most of all the Joker. And besides, who better to feature on April Fool's Day?
Like Batman, the Joker has had several incarnations the last 80s years. Sometimes he's a psychopathic killer who will do anything depraved; other times, he's simply a laughing crook who likes to wear clown makeup and challenge Batman to surfing contests. Either way, the Joker has captivated audiences unlike any other supervillain. Here he is in some of his various personas.
Here's six minutes of Cesar Romero's Joker laughing his head off!.
Not to be outdone, Mark Hamill's Joker is no slouch in the maniacal laughter department.
Jack Nicholson's Joker is basically that: Jack being Jack but in clown makeup. And audiences loved it!
Heath Ledger's Joker was a bit less histrionic that otber portrayals, but his was no less menacing. Far from it!
OK, Jared Leto's Joker was not so well received by the public at large, but I found him surprisingly effective, even if we didn't see too much of him in Suicide Squad.
Of course, for many comic book devotees, no version of the Joker in other media will ever top the Joker in his natural habit, the printed page. In any format he appears in, he will always be the one true Clown Prince of Crime.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
