Warner Bros. Studio Notes Nearly Ruined One Of The Greatest Batman Movies Of All Time

Batman: Mask of Illusion tells two stories intertwined out of chronological order. In the present, Batman (Kevin Conroy) is on the trail of Phantasm (Stacy Keach), a Grim Reaper-themed assassin who hunts gangsters in Gotham. Bruce Wayne’s old flame Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany) has also returned to town. Bruce’s memories of how he chose a future with Andrea over being Batman make up the second story.

“Mask of the Phantasm” was made by the same team that produced the groundbreaking animation “Batman: The Animated Series.” If you list “Phantasm” among the episodes of this show, it will definitely rank among the best. Warner Bros. was So confident in the film that she decided to switch it from a home video release to a theatrical release – much to the dismay of the filmmakers.

In Vulture’s oral history of “Batman: The Animated Series,” co-writers Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski (who co-directed “Phantasm” together) explain why this final second change was painful. The film was produced for home viewing, and releasing it for theatrical distribution meant introducing “a whole bunch of problems in terms of technology and quality,” as Radomski put it.

They also had to allow more chefs from Warner Bros. Entering the kitchen. One executive had the brilliant idea of ​​recasting the film in chronological order, since the flashbacks were “confusing”.

“We were like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ This will kill the movie! That meant Batman wouldn’t show up until half an hour into the movie!” Tim recalled to Vulture. “Once the movie was cut and presented in this structure, it was clear that WB had broken something that didn’t need to be fixed. Instead, ‘Mask of the Phantasm’ was released as intended, and although it was not a box office success, it became a timeless classic.

A live-action Batman movie that is structured similarly to “Mask of the Phantasm” is “Batman Begins.” This film shows an adult Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) training to be a vigilante, interspersed with flashbacks to how his parents’ deaths led him to this point. Bruce doesn’t appear as Batman until an hour into “Begins,” which is the exact fear Timm and Radomski had about re-editing “Mask of the Phantasm.”

However, the whole idea of ​​”Batman Begins” is to explore how Bruce Wayne became Batman, so the pacing makes sense. Director Christopher Nolan and co. They were confident that the audience would accept Batman’s late appearance if they told a good story.

If “Mask of the Phantasm” had been told chronologically, audiences expecting a Batman cartoon would have fallen into a romantic drama. The film is called “Mask of the Phantasm,” but audiences won’t know who or what the Phantasm is until much later.

Let’s take a look at the actual opening scene of “Phantasm.” After a title sequence of the camera sweeping across the skyscrapers of Gotham, the story begins with Batman attacking a group of gangsters. Their boss, Chucky Saul (Dick Miller), escapes, but is ambushed by the Chimera. This immediately introduces the driving conflict of the film, and gains the audience’s trust.

Moreover, flashbacks are not Not enthusiasticIt flows with major transitions from the present to the past. An early scene of Bruce at a party with women gathered around him establishes him as a heartbreaking bachelor, leading to the first flashback explaining how he met Andrea years ago. The moment where Bruce cries in front of his parents’ grave, asking them for forgiveness if he chooses happiness over fighting crime, ends with a cut to the present as tear-like raindrops stream down Batman’s mask.

The chronological “Batman: Mask of Illusion” loses this narrative flow and weakens the film’s contrast between past and present. Turns out the biggest contradiction isn’t Bruce, it’s Andrea. that it Phantom, to kill the gangsters who killed her debtor father, Karl.

Bruce and Andrea once completed each other’s now broken hearts; They both lost their parents and then became a dark avenger of the night. Black Phantasm’s costume and cape clearly resemble Batman’s. The police mistake Phantasm for Batman, because they look and act very similar from a distance.

While Batman is always tempted by revenge, his true goal is justice. His honor to his parents’ memory is not to take revenge on their specific killer, but rather to fight every night to ensure that no one else suffers the pain that a young orphaned child once endured. However, Andrea is only out for personal satisfaction and has no problem committing murder to get it. Once a representation of Bruce’s hope for a brighter future, she is now a dark reflection of what his future has become.

“Batman: The Animated Series” takes much of its style from film noir. Many film noirs adopt a non-chronological narrative style (such as Double Indemnity and From the Past), so Mask of Illusion fits into this tradition. Andrea is also an unconventional femme fatale.

Humphrey Bogart’s romance “In A Lonely Place” depicts a man who destroys his relationship with his girlfriend (Gloria Grahame) through his short temper and paranoia. The film ends with three lines that sum up their romance, and I think also Bruce and Andrea’s story: “I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. And I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”