Batman (1989) vs. The Dark Knight (2008): Episode 2

<v Speaker 1>This is a podcast from Minute Media. Oh I got
<v Speaker 1>a live one here.
<v Speaker 2>All right, everybody, welcome back to the Shrill You Can't
<v Speaker 2>Be Serious podcast. This week we're tackling the Batman eighty
<v Speaker 2>nine versus the Dark Knight.
<v Speaker 1>Dah, I've got a question for you.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, have you ever danced with the devil by the
<v Speaker 2>pillin night?
<v Speaker 3>What you say?
<v Speaker 1>I was asked out of all my costs? Uh huh.
<v Speaker 2>Here we are for part two of Batman eighty nine
<v Speaker 2>versus Dark Knight.
<v Speaker 1>You want to get nuts, Let's get nuts.
<v Speaker 4>Go go with a smock.
<v Speaker 1>All right, So let's podcast Batman eighty nine. Okay, okay.
<v Speaker 2>And we talked about how when the movie has developed
<v Speaker 2>over ten years, there's gonna be a lot of people associated. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>so I've got a killer list, but for this movie
<v Speaker 2>to work, you have to have a great Bruce Wayne,
<v Speaker 2>and you have to have a great joker. Everybody else's
<v Speaker 2>kind of window dressing.
<v Speaker 1>And okay, so here are the names. I mean, we're
<v Speaker 1>talking the mid eighties.
<v Speaker 2>It's it's all the mediating stars, right, I mean, it's
<v Speaker 2>Kurt Russell, it's Harrison Ford, it's Tom Cruise, it's Kevin Costler. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>it's all these guys, but here are the names that
<v Speaker 2>kind of stood out to me. Okay, we talked about
<v Speaker 2>Bill Murray and Ivan Wright.
<v Speaker 1>Okay.
<v Speaker 2>One of the things that they wanted was they wanted
<v Speaker 2>Pierce Brossman to be Bruce Wayne.
<v Speaker 1>No solid choice. I think that would have been really cool. Yeah, okay,
<v Speaker 1>great looking guy, perfect jaw line, suave.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he could definitely played the cool playboy for action hero. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and clearly action hero. James Bond Right, Alc Baldwin, who
<v Speaker 2>had worked with Tim Burton on Beatle Juice.
<v Speaker 1>True, that kind of point. Yeah, up and comer. But
<v Speaker 1>here's the one that blew me away. Okay, and we're talking.
<v Speaker 2>I mean we've got Albacino, Kevin Spacey, Patrick Swayzey, Richard Gear,
<v Speaker 2>Michael Bean even. But the name that really stands out
<v Speaker 2>to me they wanted Richard Donner to direct Mel Gibson
<v Speaker 2>as Bruce Wayne.
<v Speaker 1>Do you really want to jump in? Do you want
<v Speaker 1>to Joe Pesci as the penguin? Oh? Well, that one
<v Speaker 1>would be a solid choice for sure. Joe Pesci would
<v Speaker 1>be an ideal penguin.
<v Speaker 2>But I'm funny, how I mean funny, like I'm a
<v Speaker 2>clown if usual I make you laugh.
<v Speaker 1>I can see Mel Gibson as Batman and that could
<v Speaker 1>have been a big hit movie. But yeah, would you
<v Speaker 1>trade Batman eighty nine for leuth Weapon two? No? With
<v Speaker 1>with Mel Gibson? Yeah? No, Yeah, Okay, do you want
<v Speaker 1>to talk about their most outrageous consideration for the part
<v Speaker 1>of Bruce Wayne? Sure ahead. His name was Michael Keaton. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>two twenty one. Whatever it takes, that's true about absurd, right. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So Michael Olsen when they say, okay, we would like
<v Speaker 1>Michael Keaton to play Bruce Wayne, he laughed out loud
<v Speaker 1>because he thought they were joking. Yeah, and he was like,
<v Speaker 1>you have mister Mom, right, yeah, and then they're like, no,
<v Speaker 1>we're serious, and he was up in arms. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>he's been working on this for nearly ten years and
<v Speaker 1>they're bringing they're bringing the guy for Night Shift Love
<v Speaker 1>Brookers what. He's a comedy actor. We the mayonnaise to
<v Speaker 1>the tuna. Yeah, I mean, Michael Keaton was a way
<v Speaker 1>out there choice. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>He had done mister Mom, he had done Beetlejuice. He
<v Speaker 2>was amazing a beetlejuice. But it was a comedic performance.
<v Speaker 1>It's All of his stuff had been comedic performances, except
<v Speaker 1>for a movie that he had just done called Clean
<v Speaker 1>and Sober. Right The Wall Street Journal, I know, the
<v Speaker 1>freaking Walls Street Journal, November twenty ninth, nineteen eighty eight.
<v Speaker 1>Front Page News. What is Warner Brothers thinking casting this
<v Speaker 1>guy as Bruce Wayne. It's destined to fail? Yeah, except
<v Speaker 1>it didn't. Except it didn't. So here's the deal.
<v Speaker 2>So Warner Brothers got fifty thousand protest letters, fifty fifty thousand.
<v Speaker 2>And this is in the day where you don't just
<v Speaker 2>type an email, right, You've got to get out of
<v Speaker 2>piece pape, burn a pencil and stamping stamp it people.
<v Speaker 1>If you do the math. I don't know what stamps
<v Speaker 1>were back then, probably about thirty cents, I'm guessing, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think five, but yeah, okay, so let's say twenty
<v Speaker 1>five that's over ten thousand dollars worth of stamps. They
<v Speaker 1>took the time to write down their anger on a
<v Speaker 1>piece of paper. Now, listen, that's fifty thousand fans. Okay, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the
<v Speaker 1>people who didn't take the time to do that, right,
<v Speaker 1>but also people who were against it. Were Sam Ham screenwriter, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Bob Kine, creator of Batman, and Michael Uslin.
<v Speaker 2>When the guy had been babying this for ten years,
<v Speaker 2>seeing it through, bringing it, dragging it to the finish line,
<v Speaker 2>and Tim Burton says, no, we're doing this.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and Tim Burton had enough sway to make it happen.
<v Speaker 1>A guy again with two movies, one of which was
<v Speaker 1>a pee wee Herman movie, Are you kidding me? That's nuts?
<v Speaker 1>A guy with two movies says it's gonna Michael Keaton,
<v Speaker 1>or it's gonna be Michael Keaton. How about that right now?
<v Speaker 1>I'll note whenever they announced Robert Paniston as the new
<v Speaker 1>Bruce Wayne slash Batman, Yes, the same reaction happened and
<v Speaker 1>people went nuts. My friends went nuts. This is terrible.
<v Speaker 1>We got the twinkle vampire from Twilight, who's really okay, guys.
<v Speaker 1>Number one, he's a good freaking actor. He is a
<v Speaker 1>really good freaking actor. And yes he is a pretty man,
<v Speaker 1>but okay, he's playing a superhero. So I literally said,
<v Speaker 1>I didn't even know this part of history. I was
<v Speaker 1>ten eleven or whatever. Whenever they're making Batman and I
<v Speaker 1>was not in tune with the making of movies. I
<v Speaker 1>saw movies when they came out. That's all I cared about.
<v Speaker 1>And I said to all of my friends, my guess
<v Speaker 1>is that there are a lot of people that were
<v Speaker 1>up in arms about Michael Keaton. Turns out there were, yes,
<v Speaker 1>a whole lot. Oh yeah, and guess what, great, He's
<v Speaker 1>the best Batman that there's ever been. That's true. I'll
<v Speaker 1>say it again, and I'll spike the football. He is
<v Speaker 1>the best Batman that there has ever been.
<v Speaker 2>When we get to the end of this discussion, we're
<v Speaker 2>going to compare Batman's batmobiles, jokers. Okay, we'll talk about
<v Speaker 2>all that stuff.
<v Speaker 1>So just a few years later, they were interviewing him
<v Speaker 1>about this, and you can tell the question was do
<v Speaker 1>you feel a sense of vengeance because his response is, ah,
<v Speaker 1>one of the vengeance is the I'm a big fan
<v Speaker 1>of irony. Several thousand people against the idea, you know,
<v Speaker 1>and you know that's okay. You know, when they hung
<v Speaker 1>me in Figy, I thought that was a bit extreme
<v Speaker 1>for me. He's a funny guy.
<v Speaker 2>He's a funny guy, and you know he is getting
<v Speaker 2>ready to play Bruce Wayne again.
<v Speaker 1>And Batman in the flash point in the Flesh movie
<v Speaker 1>and people are super pumped up. I hope he says,
<v Speaker 1>I'm vengeance. You know what else?
<v Speaker 2>When they hired Heath Ledger to be the Joker, people
<v Speaker 2>lost their freaking mind as well. Lost their mind. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>the guy for ten Things I Hate about you in
<v Speaker 2>A Night's Tale and The Patriot.
<v Speaker 1>How is this guy going to be the Joker? Are
<v Speaker 1>you kidding me? Broke Back Mountain? Broke Back Mountain. It
<v Speaker 1>got him the part, that's exactly right. Christopher Nolan saw
<v Speaker 1>that and said, this is a guy who's willing to
<v Speaker 1>take a risk. This is my guy. He actually wanted
<v Speaker 1>him for Batman. He was one of the original considerations
<v Speaker 1>when they were casting Batman begins. Heath Ledger was a
<v Speaker 1>guy that Christopher Nolan wanted, and Heath Ledger turned it down.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to be Batman. This is a guy
<v Speaker 1>for a young actor. I mean, you see this more
<v Speaker 1>with older actors. But he was a young actor at
<v Speaker 1>the time. He would only do a movie every few years.
<v Speaker 1>He wasn't out there constantly pumping it. He was a
<v Speaker 1>guy who found the right movie. He said he would
<v Speaker 1>do a movie who'd take a break and go long
<v Speaker 1>enough until he got hungry for it again and was
<v Speaker 1>at that point he would decide what movie he wanted
<v Speaker 1>to do. Fortunately for the rest of us, that happened
<v Speaker 1>to happen back in about two thousand and seven. Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you know what he said when they asked him, why
<v Speaker 1>didn't you pursue that? Bruce Wayne Roll, he said, I'm
<v Speaker 1>like a dog. Jes carrs all right, let's talk about
<v Speaker 1>the Joker. Okay, eighty nine Joker, And.
<v Speaker 4>Now, folks, it's time for who do you trust?
<v Speaker 1>Money, money, money, Who do you trust me? I'm giving
<v Speaker 1>away three money? And where is that man.
<v Speaker 2>One of the movies that sort of gave birth to
<v Speaker 2>Jack Nicholson being the Joker is The Witches of eastrog Right, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>If you remember that.
<v Speaker 2>I had Susan Strand and Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman herself.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Well, the producer of that movie was John.
<v Speaker 2>Peters, and he and Nicholson worked together, but they didn't
<v Speaker 2>really like each other, but he knew he's going to
<v Speaker 2>be great as the Joker.
<v Speaker 1>Well, they were both probably chasing the same tale. John Peters,
<v Speaker 1>world famous at Chasing Dale. Yes, mister hairdresser, himself. So
<v Speaker 1>here are the names that they wanted to be the joker.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, And like I said, many names associated with this, okay,
<v Speaker 2>Christopher Lloyd, David Bowie, Tim Curry, William Dafoe, Robert de Niro.
<v Speaker 2>But the big ones, the people that came the closest,
<v Speaker 2>are John Lithgow Okay, Robin Williams, and then of course
<v Speaker 2>Jack Nicholson.
<v Speaker 1>Jack Nicholson was always there, the number one, never rote
<v Speaker 1>another man's repart. So the way that they did this
<v Speaker 1>was rather deceptive, and I feel a little bit sorry
<v Speaker 1>for Robin Williams.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they screwed him over, yes, because they used him
<v Speaker 2>as bait.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely.
<v Speaker 2>So when they talked to Nicholson, Nichols like, yeah, it
<v Speaker 2>sounds kind of fun. Yeah, you know, it sounds kind
<v Speaker 2>of fun, but I don't really know. And so they
<v Speaker 2>go to Robin Williams and Robin Williams says, yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>want to do that, So he commits to the project. Now,
<v Speaker 2>so they go to Jack Nicholson and they're like, hey, listen,
<v Speaker 2>you want to do this or you don't want to
<v Speaker 2>do this. Robin Williams is committed, and that's when Jack
<v Speaker 2>steps back into the picture.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so before before he gave the official yes, he
<v Speaker 1>had Peter Gouber and Tim Burton come out to his
<v Speaker 1>little ranch, right and they get there and Jack's like,
<v Speaker 1>let's scoop for a ride on the horses, and Tim
<v Speaker 1>Burton's like, I don't. I don't ride horses, and Jack
<v Speaker 1>Nichols is like, well today you do. That's great man.
<v Speaker 1>So he was willing to get on a horse. He thought, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna trust this guy. Now. Once Jack Nicholson commits,
<v Speaker 1>he commits. Yeah, he's all in. He's not Bill Murray
<v Speaker 1>who will flake out on. He's not Chevy Chase. He
<v Speaker 1>is a guy who will follow the direction that he
<v Speaker 1>has given once he's committed to that director. You know
<v Speaker 1>what else Robin Williams missed out on. They went to
<v Speaker 1>Robin Williams to play the Riddler for Batman Forever.
<v Speaker 2>I keep bringing up Batman Forever. But he couldn't commit
<v Speaker 2>to that as well. He kind of toyed with him
<v Speaker 2>and didn't ever commit. So that had his feelings hurt
<v Speaker 2>a little bit of he was mad at Warner Brothers.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So, but here's the here's one of the things I
<v Speaker 2>want to talk about before we get off casting. But
<v Speaker 2>the amount of money that Jack Nicholson made on Batman
<v Speaker 2>is obscene.
<v Speaker 1>It is important to note because it shows the foresight
<v Speaker 1>of Jack Nicholson. He took a lower paycheck than he
<v Speaker 1>normally would. I mean, this is a guy who's the
<v Speaker 1>number one guy. I mean, tying his name to this
<v Speaker 1>movie made it something that people got freaking excited about.
<v Speaker 1>You saw him at the end of that trailer. Wait,
<v Speaker 1>do they get a load to me? Yeah? Oh crap,
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to go see that movie the day it
<v Speaker 1>comes out, right, So he saw that, He's like, I
<v Speaker 1>know I'm gonna make this movie, and I know this
<v Speaker 1>movie is going to be good, so give me numbers
<v Speaker 1>on the back end. So he took a I think
<v Speaker 1>what was it like, normally was a ten million pay day.
<v Speaker 1>He took six, and then he.
<v Speaker 2>Got a percentage of the box office and the toys
<v Speaker 2>for Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Forever.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, the result was something to the tune of ninety
<v Speaker 1>million dollars and he probably got screwed out of some money.
<v Speaker 1>That's right, that's right. A quick side note on that
<v Speaker 1>Raileota was approached.
<v Speaker 2>To play the Joker. They talked to him about playing
<v Speaker 2>the Joker. They talked to him about playing two Face
<v Speaker 2>for Batman Forever, and they talked to him about playing Batman,
<v Speaker 2>but he did another movie instead called good Fellas. Goodfellas yep,
<v Speaker 2>which we will talk about here in just a couple
<v Speaker 2>of weeks.
<v Speaker 1>That was a good choice for him. Yeah, it was okay.
<v Speaker 1>So we've got a Batman yep, we've got a Joker, yes,
<v Speaker 1>which that Joker meant more money from the studios and
<v Speaker 1>the investors for sure. Absolutely. So who are we going
<v Speaker 1>to have for our love interest?
<v Speaker 2>So our love interest is Vicky Baale and they had
<v Speaker 2>her cast Shanya Sean Young from Blade, Blade Runner and
<v Speaker 2>Stripes and Ace Ventura.
<v Speaker 1>Forgot Finkel is Final.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, Sean Young had been cast as Vicky Vale. And
<v Speaker 2>not only that, it was like a week before filming started.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, not even not even it's another story like the
<v Speaker 1>Michael being alien story, right, that's right. It's not just
<v Speaker 1>who can we get, but who can we get that
<v Speaker 1>can be here tomorrow. So Sean Young was practicing her
<v Speaker 1>part as Vicky Vale. She was riding horses because there
<v Speaker 1>actually was a scene in the script where Bruce Wayne
<v Speaker 1>and Dicky Vale ride horses together. Oh maybe they decided
<v Speaker 1>that wasn't such a good idea.
<v Speaker 2>So she fell off the horse and injured her color bone,
<v Speaker 2>I believe. And I saw her talking about this and
<v Speaker 2>she said, you know, I just couldn't hang on to
<v Speaker 2>the horse. And she's like, it was a picture of
<v Speaker 2>my whole career. I had Batman and I just couldn't
<v Speaker 2>hang on.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you know, that is a.
<v Speaker 2>Blockbuster that could have led to another blockbuster, which could
<v Speaker 2>have led to more things. So sadly they had to
<v Speaker 2>replace Vicky Vail immediately. So, like you said, they had
<v Speaker 2>to find somebody who was available. Can you get on
<v Speaker 2>a plane tomorrow and fly to London. It also had
<v Speaker 2>to have a name that lit up the marquee. Their
<v Speaker 2>first thought was Michelle Fider. Oh yeah, she was dating
<v Speaker 2>Michael Keaton at the time. Perfect except Michael Keaton's like, ah,
<v Speaker 2>hold on there, Phillis, I don't want to put pressure
<v Speaker 2>on my relationship by being in this blockbuster movie with
<v Speaker 2>my girlfriend. So he kind of put the brakes on that.
<v Speaker 2>Wait until the next movie. Then she comes out as catwoman.
<v Speaker 2>Hear her roar, so they call Kim Basinger and of
<v Speaker 2>course she's like I'm not doing anything. I could be
<v Speaker 2>in London tomorrow and here.
<v Speaker 1>She comes Everywood Studios, same place that they shot at Superman.
<v Speaker 1>All right, quickly, you have Michael guff who played Alfred,
<v Speaker 1>and Burton cast him because he liked him in some
<v Speaker 1>of those old Hammer film productions. Okay, yeah, it's interesting. Okay, yeah, okay.
<v Speaker 2>You have alex Alexander Knox, Opportunity Knox. Robert Woll played him.
<v Speaker 2>We talked about him in our Bulldrm episode Lally Gaggers,
<v Speaker 2>lollly Gaggers. I met Robert Wool the summer of nineteen
<v Speaker 2>eighty nine.
<v Speaker 1>You guys tell me that story. Okay. When I say I.
<v Speaker 2>Met him, I stood next to him. I stood next
<v Speaker 2>to him while my friend talked to him. But I
<v Speaker 2>was at a Kansas City Royals baseball game. Bo Jackson
<v Speaker 2>was playing for the Kansas City Royals, so that was
<v Speaker 2>a big ticket at the time. Sure, And this is
<v Speaker 2>like July of eighty nine, and they're standing next to
<v Speaker 2>me is Robert freaking Woll Alexander Knox, and he's just
<v Speaker 2>watching batting practice just like any old person. And I
<v Speaker 2>nudge my friend, I'm like, that's the dude from Batman
<v Speaker 2>and Bulder, He's like, let's go.
<v Speaker 1>Talk to him. So I stood next to him while
<v Speaker 1>he talked to him. Anyway, nice guy. So after Alexander Knox,
<v Speaker 1>let's talk about Harvey Dent because Harvey Dent is in
<v Speaker 1>this movie. Yeah, they hired Billy D. Williams to play
<v Speaker 1>Harvey Dentrisian Hell, what have we here?
<v Speaker 2>But they looked at Don Johnson, which I think could
<v Speaker 2>have been interesting. Oh for sure, William Peterson, who you
<v Speaker 2>remember from our Young Guns episode. They liked the fact
<v Speaker 2>that Billy D. Williams was black because they wanted to
<v Speaker 2>do this kind of black and white half and half
<v Speaker 2>two face.
<v Speaker 1>Things, right, Okay, And Billy D.
<v Speaker 2>Williams is like, yeah, I'll come on do this thing
<v Speaker 2>because I know two faces coming right right.
<v Speaker 1>Well, they recast him in Batman three when Joel Schumacher
<v Speaker 1>took over. One other part I want to talk is
<v Speaker 1>the part of Robin.
<v Speaker 2>Well what Robin was originally in the script for Batman
<v Speaker 2>eighty nine.
<v Speaker 1>And they even talk to people I know. Keifer Solin
<v Speaker 1>was really close. Okay. They talked to Michael J. Fox.
<v Speaker 1>We talked about Eddie Murphy, Yeah right, They talked to
<v Speaker 1>all these guys they wanted Robin in it, and then.
<v Speaker 2>They thought, no, it's too confused and too convoluted, too much.
<v Speaker 1>Cut Robin out. And so yeah, Tim Burton was like,
<v Speaker 1>when we decided to take Robin out of the script,
<v Speaker 1>there wasn't anybody who went, oh no, It was all
<v Speaker 1>just that we don't need this. And as it turns out,
<v Speaker 1>it actually makes sense because for the first year there
<v Speaker 1>was no Robin Batman operated alone. We got Batman and
<v Speaker 1>Robin in nineteen ninety five and Batman forever. One other
<v Speaker 1>person I want to mention real quick was the role
<v Speaker 1>of Alicia. I'm no Picasso, but do you like it? Right? Right? Right?
<v Speaker 2>That was Jack Napier's girlfriend, okay, played by Jerry Hall,
<v Speaker 2>who was married to Mick Jagger at the moment, right, okay,
<v Speaker 2>And so she was a model, she's pretty, she's long
<v Speaker 2>and leggy.
<v Speaker 1>Whatever. One of the people that they looked at for
<v Speaker 1>the role of Alicia was Patsy Kinset. Don't ring a bell,
<v Speaker 1>no leith a weapon. Two Riggs's girlfriend, Rika von Hagendas,
<v Speaker 1>No vandon has it's Dutch.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, South African. Yeah, I thought that was interesting.
<v Speaker 2>But she chose to do Leith's weapon two instead, I'll
<v Speaker 2>take it. And then finally, for the role of Carl Grissom,
<v Speaker 2>they hired Jack Palance. Who else could be Jack Nicholson's boss.
<v Speaker 1>Oh man, it's such a fantastic and short performance. I
<v Speaker 1>love it. You, oh my number one god, you on
<v Speaker 1>my number one guy.
<v Speaker 2>Apparently he was kind of a jerk to Tim Burton
<v Speaker 2>while on the set. All right, all right, you want
<v Speaker 2>to flip back to casting for a Dark Knight. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>Dark Knight is a little different because we already.
<v Speaker 1>Had Batman begins. Yeah, we've got Batman, so we.
<v Speaker 2>Already have Christian Bale. We knew we needed the Joker.
<v Speaker 1>So here are the people that they talked about possibly
<v Speaker 1>as the Joker. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Now, when you talk to Christopher Nolan, he says, Heath
<v Speaker 2>Ledger all the way, Okay, the whole time. But the
<v Speaker 2>names on the paper are interesting enough. We got to
<v Speaker 2>talk about okay, William Defoe, Steve Carrell, really yes, adri
<v Speaker 2>and Brody John Jarrett, Don Johnson for the Joker. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>and back again Robin Williams. Wow for a second shot,
<v Speaker 2>said the Joker, and still.
<v Speaker 1>Didn't get it. I would have loved to have seen it, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but I wouldn't trade it.
<v Speaker 2>He had been in Insomnia with Christopher Nolan.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, So whenever they started casting on this, it
<v Speaker 1>was actually Heath Ledger who had rejected, but he reached
<v Speaker 1>out to Christopher Nolan and said, hey, I'm kind of interested.
<v Speaker 1>Would you mind sitting down and talking to me for
<v Speaker 1>a little while, And so Christopher Nolan goes over to
<v Speaker 1>his house. They meet up and they start discussing their
<v Speaker 1>ideas of what the Joker is supposed to be with
<v Speaker 1>the right way to do the jokers for this movie,
<v Speaker 1>and they're seeing totally eye to eye. Go back to
<v Speaker 1>ripping off nod dealers. No, no, no, no, you you
<v Speaker 1>complete me. They talked about the character of Alex from
<v Speaker 1>a Clockwork Orange in the movie, they talked about him
<v Speaker 1>in the book, and they talked about said visious f authority,
<v Speaker 1>anarchy kind of style, and sex pistols. Yeah. So the
<v Speaker 1>Joker in the Dark Night is a special kind of anarchy.
<v Speaker 1>It's called illegalism. It is premised on the rejection of
<v Speaker 1>law and the moral standards reflected by law. Illegalists contend
<v Speaker 1>that both written law and standards of morality perpetuate and
<v Speaker 1>produced capitalist thought. Which they find oppressive and explosive. And
<v Speaker 1>that is the philosophy line of the Joker. And the
<v Speaker 1>nice thing about this, and this is important, I think,
<v Speaker 1>is they weren't doing a Joker origin story, which is
<v Speaker 1>what you got in Batman aid and I right. What
<v Speaker 1>they wanted was for the Joker to come fully formed
<v Speaker 1>and you see the rise of the Joker, not the
<v Speaker 1>origin of the Joker, which is perfect. Now, as you mentioned,
<v Speaker 1>there were several guys considered, but every single one of
<v Speaker 1>them was afraid to come to this role. You know why,
<v Speaker 1>Jack Nicholson, Jack freaking Nicholson. That's right, Jack, Jack is dead,
<v Speaker 1>my friend, you can call me Joker. How are you
<v Speaker 1>going to fill those shoes? And so what he Fledger
<v Speaker 1>did was he sat alone in his apartment for a
<v Speaker 1>month by himself and kept a diary of what he
<v Speaker 1>thought the thoughts of Joker would be.
<v Speaker 2>Let's talk about his voice for a second. So you
<v Speaker 2>have these distinct voice, you know, he Fledgers from Australia. Right,
<v Speaker 2>there's no trace of that accent, or really any accent.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 2>There is a clip of Tom Waits, famous singer songwriter,
<v Speaker 2>appearing I believe on the Dick Cabot show.
<v Speaker 3>I have a growing level of popularity throughout the Intercottinelly,
<v Speaker 3>the United States, Japan, and I travel extensively in Europe
<v Speaker 3>as well.
<v Speaker 1>I have a growing popularity North America. He nails it, right,
<v Speaker 1>It sounds exactly you like it. It is very similar,
<v Speaker 1>for sure.
<v Speaker 2>And he's got that low kind of it's really odd voice,
<v Speaker 2>disturbing right.
<v Speaker 4>Right.
<v Speaker 2>One of the things I want to talk about real
<v Speaker 2>quick is the Glasgow smile.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I think the interesting thing again, we go back
<v Speaker 1>to that plausibility.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Jack Nicholson's joker severed the nerves, they pulled the
<v Speaker 2>cheeks back, and he's got that permanent smile that's sorry, yeah, yeah, ouch.
<v Speaker 2>And so it's it's effective, but it's campy. It's kind
<v Speaker 2>of goofy or whatever.
<v Speaker 1>Huh.
<v Speaker 2>But the Glasgow smile is what somebody would take a
<v Speaker 2>knife and split your cheeks.
<v Speaker 1>And so he's got these scars on his face. You
<v Speaker 1>know I got this scar? Why? So serious? Yeah? Right,
<v Speaker 1>tells at least two different stories, yeah, because we don't
<v Speaker 1>want the origin story and trust him. Yeah, he is
<v Speaker 1>brain is a bag of cats. There's a intelligence and
<v Speaker 1>a pureness behind what he is doing that is unwavering.
<v Speaker 1>We don't have a character arc with the Joker. He's
<v Speaker 1>the same from beginning to end. We get a character
<v Speaker 1>arc with Bruce Wayne, Yeah, we get a huge character
<v Speaker 1>arc with Harvey Dent, Yes, but the Joker is always
<v Speaker 1>the Joker.
<v Speaker 2>Hi.
<v Speaker 1>He is bound by his own philosophy and unwavering in it.
<v Speaker 1>And all he's trying to do is to get Batman
<v Speaker 1>to break one rule. That's it. That's his whole goal.
<v Speaker 1>It's his whole goal. What's that one rule he wants
<v Speaker 1>him to kill somebody? Have all these rules and you
<v Speaker 1>think they'll save you. I have one rule? Oh, then
<v Speaker 1>that's the rule will have to break to know the truth.
<v Speaker 1>The only sensible way to live in this world is
<v Speaker 1>without rules.
<v Speaker 3>And tonight you're gonna break your own law.
<v Speaker 1>I'm considering it.
<v Speaker 3>Oh there's only minta life, so you're gonna have to
<v Speaker 3>play my little game if you want to save.
<v Speaker 1>One of them. Yeah. The scene where he goes in
<v Speaker 1>and he talks to Harvey Dent after killing Rachel Dawes,
<v Speaker 1>after burning half of his face off, and they're alone together,
<v Speaker 1>and he knows the hatred that rages in this guy's
<v Speaker 1>heart it's that moment that you see the brilliance behind
<v Speaker 1>what he says when he talks about how if they'd
<v Speaker 1>say on the news that you know, five gang members
<v Speaker 1>are going to die tonight, nobody cares because that's what
<v Speaker 1>the rules are. That's what they want you to accept.
<v Speaker 1>People going to die from a terrorist attack. It's accepted.
<v Speaker 1>But you talk about killing one tiny little mayor and
<v Speaker 1>all of that. Everybody was great, Yeah, and then Harvey
<v Speaker 1>Dent puts the gun to his head and says, you live,
<v Speaker 1>you die, And he says, now you're talking. It's amazing,
<v Speaker 1>It's awesome. God's so good. He was a part of
<v Speaker 1>the whole process of building the Joker, Like he went
<v Speaker 1>with the costume designer and they looked at pictures of Disco, Zodun,
<v Speaker 1>Karen Stamp and Iggy Pop and some of these other guys,
<v Speaker 1>and they figured out they were like, Okay, let's take
<v Speaker 1>away as much as we can from this kind of
<v Speaker 1>picture that everybody has of the Joker and see could
<v Speaker 1>he be, you know, the Joker without all this stuff?
<v Speaker 1>And they realized, no, we can't. But it doesn't have
<v Speaker 1>to be the same way that's been presented. Like you
<v Speaker 1>can almost smell him on the movie screen, right. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he's not the clean, well pressed Jack Nicholson joker who's
<v Speaker 1>got uniform coats for all his hinchman Messi's guy who
<v Speaker 1>looks like he's been sleeping in the same clothes for
<v Speaker 1>the last two months. Yeah he does.
<v Speaker 2>Heath Ledger applied his own makeup. That's why if you
<v Speaker 2>look at his finger, he's got pain oliver his fingers
<v Speaker 2>all the time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Again, we go to that plausibility thing, you know, right,
<v Speaker 2>you know the interesting thing about the joker or one.
<v Speaker 1>Of the interesting things.
<v Speaker 2>There's so many, but he only says three jokes in
<v Speaker 2>the entire movie. He doesn't laugh a lot like Nicholson
<v Speaker 2>laughed the entire movie, which is charming and cool and iconic.
<v Speaker 2>But he only has three jokes in The Dark Knight,
<v Speaker 2>okay at the beginning, but it's a smoke bomb in
<v Speaker 2>the bank. Guy's mouth pulls it and it, you know, fizzles, right,
<v Speaker 2>the disappearing pencil.
<v Speaker 1>It's hilarious.
<v Speaker 2>And then his fake seductive greeting when he comes in
<v Speaker 2>to visit Harvey Dent wearing his nurse's outfit.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh, what a fantastic performance. I can't believe
<v Speaker 1>we lost such an incredible actor. I wish we could
<v Speaker 1>see what he would have done.
<v Speaker 2>We just passed the fourteenth anniversary on January twenty second.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
<v Speaker 2>You know at that scene, let's talk about that scene
<v Speaker 2>for just a second.
<v Speaker 1>I know we're kind of getting off tracked.
<v Speaker 2>But the disappearing pencil, Yeah, when I saw that in
<v Speaker 2>the theater is such a shock because I didn't know
<v Speaker 2>what he was doing.
<v Speaker 1>He's like, watch this, and I put the pistol down.
<v Speaker 1>That guy comes up to grab him and he.
<v Speaker 2>And then Pencil through the eyehole kills him, and he ah,
<v Speaker 2>you know it's the joke.
<v Speaker 1>And you realize, oh my gosh, this guy is a
<v Speaker 1>crazy killer. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead
<v Speaker 1>of the current. I mean, he's nuts and also kind
<v Speaker 1>of a badass.
<v Speaker 2>And yeah, and then they go to grab him and
<v Speaker 2>he's got a bunch of grenades in his pocket and
<v Speaker 2>he's willing to pull the pin on all of them.
<v Speaker 1>Right.
<v Speaker 2>But they said in that meeting, he's telling him he
<v Speaker 2>wants half, you know, I want half. Yeah, And they
<v Speaker 2>say you're crazy, and he goes, I'm not crazy.
<v Speaker 1>If you're good at something, never do it for free.
<v Speaker 1>You will uh half, I'm not.
<v Speaker 4>No, I'm not.
<v Speaker 1>Right. In a very stern, instantly serious tone, he says
<v Speaker 1>he wants half, but his desire, unlike Jack, his desire
<v Speaker 1>is not for money, and it's not for power. It
<v Speaker 1>is to upset the social order through crime. He just
<v Speaker 1>wants to watch the world burn got which we would
<v Speaker 1>be remiss if we didn't talk about Michael Caine as Alfred.
<v Speaker 1>Oh my gosh. Now, of course he was in Batman
<v Speaker 1>Begins as well, right, yeah, he And there's some interesting
<v Speaker 1>casting choices there. We get Liam Neeson as roz Al Ghoul,
<v Speaker 1>who of course he's going to be a mentor, right
<v Speaker 1>Liam Neeson. Of course, of course he's gone on gin.
<v Speaker 1>Oh wait, no, he's a villain. He's a super villain,
<v Speaker 1>right yeah. And then and we've got all of these
<v Speaker 1>other side characters that are played by these brilliant actors.
<v Speaker 1>He was pushing hard to get Morton Freeman and pushing
<v Speaker 1>hard to get Michael Kain. And with Michael Kaine, he
<v Speaker 1>sat there and waited while he read the script. A
<v Speaker 1>little bit of pressure. He's like, I'm not trying to
<v Speaker 1>pressure you, but I'm just gonna sit here and let
<v Speaker 1>you decide. So go ahead, listen. Michael Kane. So I
<v Speaker 1>love Michael Kaine and he is perfect as outfit. Right.
<v Speaker 2>He gives gravitas to that character. We will talk about
<v Speaker 2>Michael Kaine in just four again this summer. Michael Kaine
<v Speaker 2>was really famous for doing something great and then like
<v Speaker 2>a Paycheck movie. So I can't wait to talk about
<v Speaker 2>that Paycheck movie this summer. Yeah, let's talk about Harvey
<v Speaker 2>dam for a second.
<v Speaker 1>Wait. I haven't given up on Michael Kine yet. Okay, sorry,
<v Speaker 1>never sorry, I just had to say that. Go ahead, Neva, Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So of course Gary Oldman comes back as Commissioner Gordon again.
<v Speaker 1>Greatest actor imaginable, right. I mean if suddenly, right now
<v Speaker 1>somebody over here yelled cut and I found out that
<v Speaker 1>I was Gary Oldman the whole time. I wouldn't be surprised.
<v Speaker 1>He's that good. When he got approached, they wanted to
<v Speaker 1>play the villain, and he was like, you know what,
<v Speaker 1>I've been the villain a lot. I don't really want
<v Speaker 1>to be the villain anymore. Yeah, and talk about the
<v Speaker 1>opposite of the villain. He's the straight laced by the book.
<v Speaker 2>Ultimately, Commissioner Gourdon, Quick, name the actor you play Commissioner
<v Speaker 2>Gourdon Batman eighty nine.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, but he did a good job. It's
<v Speaker 1>a heavy guy. I can't remember his name. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know exactly right.
<v Speaker 2>The Commissioner Gordon is part of that trifecta of Dent,
<v Speaker 2>Wayne and Gordon. Yeah, you got to have that third
<v Speaker 2>piece to make it work in that second movie.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, so real quick, before we move off of
<v Speaker 1>Heath Ledger the Joker, there's a couple of things I
<v Speaker 1>want to say. Okay, so you know the scenes that
<v Speaker 1>are the terrorist home video scenes that he does right, right,
<v Speaker 1>He's got the guy tied up, right, Heath Ledger. Actually
<v Speaker 1>it's Anthony Michael Hall. Yes, one of the He's got
<v Speaker 1>the he's got the guy wearing the hockey pads, right,
<v Speaker 1>that's one of the scenes. And then there's another one
<v Speaker 1>that has Anthony Michael Hall hanging upside down, right. And
<v Speaker 1>Heath Ledger is the one that directed all of those bits.
<v Speaker 1>Christopher Nolan showed showed up for the first one and
<v Speaker 1>said you got this for the rest of these The interesting.
<v Speaker 2>Thing, I mean that's that is a huge deal, but
<v Speaker 2>there was no second unit for this movie. Christopher Nolan
<v Speaker 2>directed every piece of.
<v Speaker 1>Din Get Out of Town except except the Heath Ledger
<v Speaker 1>directed scenes. Wow. No, no, my mind is blown. That
<v Speaker 1>is nuts. Can you imagine that? No? What?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Wow, here's something about Christopher Nolan's director. But I just
<v Speaker 1>got to say. I mentioned this when we did our
<v Speaker 1>top ten. Okay, But he's the guy who doesn't look
<v Speaker 1>at the monitor, he doesn't look through the scope. He
<v Speaker 1>puts his face right next to where the camera is,
<v Speaker 1>and he the actors because he says, the monitor isn't
<v Speaker 1>a high enough resolution. You're not going to get the
<v Speaker 1>full effect on the monitor. Wow, the sound that I
<v Speaker 1>get from the headphones is compressed. I'm not going to
<v Speaker 1>get the correct sound if I put those headphones on.
<v Speaker 1>So he literally experiences it live as close as he
<v Speaker 1>can to the actors, and he won't zoom shots. He
<v Speaker 1>gets the camera right up in their face to make
<v Speaker 1>it as real and as in their world as he can.
<v Speaker 2>All right, let's talk briefly about Harvey DNS Harvey Din Go. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>So they cast Aaron Ecker, Yes, he was cast in
<v Speaker 2>February of two thousand and seven. They cast him. Nolan
<v Speaker 2>thought he looked like Robert Redford. Yeah, I thought that
<v Speaker 2>was interesting. Sure, Robert Redford American hero, right, Roy Hodgins, Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I mean he's the guy, right, I love Robert Redford.
<v Speaker 2>But here are the names of the people that they
<v Speaker 2>thought about. Okay, Mark Ruffalo, Live Schreiber, Hugh Jackman.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, that's been interesting, but it's Wolverine earlier, right, and
<v Speaker 1>Matt Damon. I could see that too. Yeah, because the
<v Speaker 1>idea with Harvey Dent is the White Knight, right, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>Batman begins, he creates the Batman by dark Knight. He's
<v Speaker 1>already trying to figure out, how can I retire from
<v Speaker 1>this job and live a life that's normal. How can
<v Speaker 1>I be with Rachel? Right, that's a big question, and
<v Speaker 1>that's why you get this kind of ultra macho measuring
<v Speaker 1>stick thing going on with Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent.
<v Speaker 1>And ultimately he realizes Harvey is the White Knight. He
<v Speaker 1>is the guy who cannot be broken, which is what
<v Speaker 1>makes his breaking so monumental.
<v Speaker 2>We need to talk about the breaking, but before we do,
<v Speaker 2>I got one other person I want to talk about. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>we already talked about Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox again
<v Speaker 2>huge actor on a minor part.
<v Speaker 1>Was written for him, which Christopher Nolan said, I don't
<v Speaker 1>normally do this, but I just had it in my
<v Speaker 1>head that it had to be him, and so it
<v Speaker 1>was super important. So I was really pretty glad because
<v Speaker 1>he didn't. He didn't just say yes right away. He's
<v Speaker 1>really glad when he showed up. GotY.
<v Speaker 2>So Baman begins in the role of Rachel Dawes. Yes
<v Speaker 2>you have Katie Holmes, Yes, okay, yep.
<v Speaker 1>She did not return for The Dark Knight. She went
<v Speaker 1>to play with Diane Keaton and Queen Latifa and Matt
<v Speaker 1>Money instead. You buying that story? No, what do you
<v Speaker 1>think happened? I think that Tom Cruise was a pain
<v Speaker 1>in the butt, yep, because she seems like a nice,
<v Speaker 1>reasonable person. She did a decent job in the role.
<v Speaker 1>She's much better looking than the second Rachel Dawes. Maggie
<v Speaker 1>what's her name, Maggie jillenhlks E. Not an attractive woman. Sorry, Maggie,
<v Speaker 1>no offense to you, just I'm just saying. We talked
<v Speaker 1>about this the other day. Here's the problem.
<v Speaker 2>Katie Holmes looks like she's eternally sixteen. She's supposed to be,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the tough lawyer. Yeah, I could see that,
<v Speaker 2>eh eh, Okay, Maggie Jillenhall maybe a little tougher, still
<v Speaker 2>not you know, she's not the girl that you If
<v Speaker 2>you lose, you lose your mind to turn to a
<v Speaker 2>life of crime and become a super villain. If Maggie
<v Speaker 2>Jillenhall breaks up with you or dies, you're like, all right,
<v Speaker 2>well that was tragic, go find somebody else.
<v Speaker 1>Well, okay, so let's talk. Let's talk about that scene. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>because I will say this. I just I feel bad
<v Speaker 1>now that I've said something, but I want to say
<v Speaker 1>this as honestly as I can. She sells the moment
<v Speaker 1>that she dies. Yeah, she does. She does. And it's
<v Speaker 1>a short it's a few seconds long, and she sells it,
<v Speaker 1>and she does a great job with it. She's not
<v Speaker 1>a bad actress. She's just to me, not an attractive
<v Speaker 1>person ever at the beauties in the eye of the Beholder.
<v Speaker 1>That's all I want to say about that, Okay. But
<v Speaker 1>Jonathan Nolan talks about the fact that with superhero movies,
<v Speaker 1>you've got this genre that has certain tropes, and you
<v Speaker 1>have the audience because of those tropes has expectations. We
<v Speaker 1>think about Spider Man, where he's got to save his
<v Speaker 1>girlfriend and the car of children. Right, well, the villain
<v Speaker 1>thinks that he's got him where one of them has
<v Speaker 1>to die and the other one choose Spider Man. Yeah right,
<v Speaker 1>either this or that, and the superhero always manages to
<v Speaker 1>save both. So Jonathan said it was really easy to
<v Speaker 1>kick the legs out from underneath that everybody expected at worst,
<v Speaker 1>at worst, if he didn't save both of them, he
<v Speaker 1>was certainly going to save Rachel, right wrong, Yeah, no,
<v Speaker 1>And by the way, the address that he gives and
<v Speaker 1>this is interesting, the address that he gives Batman, which
<v Speaker 1>is the wrong address Batman's trying to go save Rachel. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>he says, she's at two hundred and fifty fifty second Street. Okay,
<v Speaker 1>two five zero five two. It's palindrome, like the two
<v Speaker 1>sides of a coin. Interesting. There you go. Interesting. So
<v Speaker 1>she gets blown to bits and Harvey gets his half
<v Speaker 1>his face burned off. Yes, yes, you want to talk
<v Speaker 1>about it now? Do you want to talk about it now?
<v Speaker 1>Or we're going to save it. Let's save it.
<v Speaker 2>Let's say it all right, Just a couple of the
<v Speaker 2>actresses that we're going to take over for Tom Cruise's
<v Speaker 2>crazy wife, I mean crazy Tom's crazy crazy Tom's wife,
<v Speaker 2>his wife, Sarah, Michelle Geller, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams is
<v Speaker 2>the Fisher. Okay, yeah, sure, decent actresses, pretty faces. You know,
<v Speaker 2>it's interesting that Heath Ledger kissed both Maggie and Jake in.
<v Speaker 5>His brother and sister can discuss who is the best, right,
<v Speaker 5>Oh my gosh, okay, okay, real quick, I want to
<v Speaker 5>throw this out there.
<v Speaker 1>I can remember going to see In the Dark Knight
<v Speaker 1>at the theater Saw with a couple of buddies of mine,
<v Speaker 1>both who have moved on to great things, but we
<v Speaker 1>went to see the movie together. So hyper intelligent guys.
<v Speaker 1>Right when we get there, as we're handing our ticket,
<v Speaker 1>we say where should we sit to the guy you
<v Speaker 1>know that's taking the tickets. He says, well, if you
<v Speaker 1>sit in the back, the seats move. And I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>is this some sort of like virtual experience? What's going on?
<v Speaker 1>While he's talking about the bass, like when you get
<v Speaker 1>that deep base of Hans Zimmer and all of the
<v Speaker 1>most it would the seats vibrated, right, So I'm sitting there,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm watching them with these guys and it gets
<v Speaker 1>to that party scene where the Joker kisses and Bruce
<v Speaker 1>Wayne is running to his secret layer, and you remember
<v Speaker 1>if he as he runs through the room, there's this
<v Speaker 1>lurtorous old man and this really beautiful young woman. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like making out. Yes, and she's like, oh, he's got
<v Speaker 1>his panic room, right, and then he leaves them, right?
<v Speaker 1>And did he leave us? I went to college with her,
<v Speaker 1>she went to OU with me. Really, name's Jennifer Knox.
<v Speaker 1>She is absolutely gorgeous, was then is now and perfect
<v Speaker 1>for the part. But I had no idea that she
<v Speaker 1>was in the movie. And we're sitting there watching.
<v Speaker 6>Him, like I know her.
<v Speaker 1>Holy cow, I know that girl right there. Really? Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's awesome.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Hey, speaking of personal connections to the Dark Knight, Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>our buddy John Reid, Yeah, who co hosts the podcast Full.
<v Speaker 1>Of Kryptonite with us. Yes, and he does a thirty
<v Speaker 1>sixth movie podcast. Yep.
<v Speaker 2>He and I believe Dennis. They were extras during the
<v Speaker 2>Mayor assassination scene.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, okay, drove down to Chicago. Yeah, so they live
<v Speaker 1>up there.
<v Speaker 2>And I texted him this week and the code name
<v Speaker 2>that the Dark Knight was film under was Rory's first kiss. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>Christopher Nolan has a son named Rory.
<v Speaker 1>He was kind of a young kid.
<v Speaker 2>Oh, okay, Rory's first kiss. So I asked him, I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>did you know that The Dark Knight was filming and
<v Speaker 2>it was just kind of a cover or how much?
<v Speaker 2>He's like it was a poorly kept secret. Yeah, we
<v Speaker 2>all knew it was Batman.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. They were like guys on the radio going, hey, guys,
<v Speaker 1>you know if anybody still doesn't know, it's not Rory's
<v Speaker 1>first kid. He said that.
<v Speaker 2>He said that, like that street would shut down and
<v Speaker 2>they would just cover the Batmobile with a sheet. Our buddy,
<v Speaker 2>John Reid.
<v Speaker 1>Go check out the thirty something Movie podcast and podcast. Yeah, okay.
<v Speaker 1>One of the names we somehow bypassed was Christian Bale. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>kind of an important one. I don't know if you've
<v Speaker 1>ever seen him. He was a childhood actor. He did.
<v Speaker 1>He was in Empire of the Son. Yeah, yeah, yes,
<v Speaker 1>he was in Empire of the Son. And he was
<v Speaker 1>in Henry the Fifth, the Kene Browno version as one
<v Speaker 1>of the boys in that end. Wow. I mean he's
<v Speaker 1>been with us for a long time. American psycho. But
<v Speaker 1>I mean his name was not a Wait a minute,
<v Speaker 1>you're telling me he was Batman and Bateman what, oh
<v Speaker 1>my gosh. Oh yes. So before he got casts, actually
<v Speaker 1>I get. I can't remember whether he would that he
<v Speaker 1>had taken the job yet or not. But before he
<v Speaker 1>started filming for Batman Begins, he did a movie called
<v Speaker 1>The Machinist. Have you seen it? I have not ever
<v Speaker 1>brought myself to see this. It is a great movie.
<v Speaker 1>You may not like it, it may not be your style,
<v Speaker 1>but it is a great movie. But part of what
<v Speaker 1>he did was drop all of like he's he's a
<v Speaker 1>guy who doesn't eat and doesn't sleep, and so he
<v Speaker 1>dropped down to I think something like one hundred and
<v Speaker 1>twenty pounds, one hundred and twenty pounds. This guy's six
<v Speaker 1>foot and he's down to a one hundred and twenty.
<v Speaker 1>He is literally skin and bones, and he's about to
<v Speaker 1>go be a superhero. When you look at the.
<v Speaker 2>Pictures of him at one hundred and twenty, you can
<v Speaker 2>see the ripcage through his pictorial muscles.
<v Speaker 1>There's nothing there, nothing there, and he has to go
<v Speaker 1>become Batman. So Christopher Nolan says to him, gain as
<v Speaker 1>much weight as you possibly can in the next seat
<v Speaker 1>six months, and so he's just eating all he wants
<v Speaker 1>to and working out, eating and working out, and he
<v Speaker 1>gained a whole lot of weight. He was well above
<v Speaker 1>two hundred, to the point that when he showed up,
<v Speaker 1>the crew on the movie went, are we filming Batman
<v Speaker 1>or fat Man? Incredible? And so Christopher Nolan was like,
<v Speaker 1>oh uh, let's maybe you do some cutting here. So
<v Speaker 1>he dropped twenty pounds from what he had gained himself
<v Speaker 1>up to of fat which is where you get the
<v Speaker 1>guy who can drop to a full standing to drop
<v Speaker 1>push up, and he looks like an action hero.
<v Speaker 2>He looks like a linebacker, you know. Yeah, and you
<v Speaker 2>when you see those pictures of him in the Machinist's
<v Speaker 2>it's amazing.
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy. That is That's some dedication right there. He
<v Speaker 1>had gotten cast. He was the very first guy who
<v Speaker 1>auditioned for the part of Batman Batman begins, but they
<v Speaker 1>went through several other people. Yes, one of the guys
<v Speaker 1>that screen tested was Killian Murphy. Yeah, and Christopher Nolan
<v Speaker 1>was like, I just his eyes are amazing, his acting
<v Speaker 1>is amazing. He's just not right for this part. But
<v Speaker 1>I want to cast him, and so that's how he
<v Speaker 1>ends up getting the part of the Scarecrow, which he
<v Speaker 1>comes back in the Dark Night. Small bit, but it's
<v Speaker 1>part of it, right, not my diagnosis, right, yeah, right,
<v Speaker 1>And he's and he's been in like just about every
<v Speaker 1>other Christopher Nolan movie since then. Right, he's an inception.
<v Speaker 1>He's I believe in Interstellar. I don't know anyway, he's
<v Speaker 1>He and Christopher Nolan definitely formed a bond, right, Well, you.
<v Speaker 2>Talked about Heath Ledger auditioned for the part of Bruce Wayne.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, and so he when they did the screen
<v Speaker 1>tests with him, they filmed it on actual film. They
<v Speaker 1>took they looked at like the Val Kilmer Batman thing
<v Speaker 1>and made their own Batman cowl so that he could look.
<v Speaker 1>And one of the actresses that did him a favor
<v Speaker 1>to read the part of Rachel Dawes was Amy Adams,
<v Speaker 1>who of course goes on to play Lois Lane in
<v Speaker 1>Man of Steel. A quick story on that one. David
<v Speaker 1>Goyer and Christopher Nolan are working hard on Batman Begins,
<v Speaker 1>and they hit writer's block and they go and they
<v Speaker 1>can't figure out where to go next. The can't figure
<v Speaker 1>out where to go next, and Christopher Nolan's like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>we're just gonna take two weeks off. We're gonna go
<v Speaker 1>do other things. We'll come back to this, okay. And
<v Speaker 1>so David S. Goyer goes home. He's like, okay, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I'm set blocking off my time. I'm going to focus
<v Speaker 1>on this movie for this amount of time. He's working
<v Speaker 1>on other projects too, but as every other writer does,
<v Speaker 1>he procrastinates, and he picks up some comic books. And
<v Speaker 1>the comic books he happens to pick up are Superman
<v Speaker 1>comic books, okay, and he gives them this idea of
<v Speaker 1>a Superman movie. What I can do with that?
<v Speaker 4>Humh.
<v Speaker 1>And so he writes out a little storyline and he's like,
<v Speaker 1>this might work.
<v Speaker 5>It's my work.
<v Speaker 1>He goes, but I think Warner Brothers has already got
<v Speaker 1>a Superman movie in the works, a Superman reboot in
<v Speaker 1>the works. So no big deal, just a way to
<v Speaker 1>distract myself. Maybe I could, maybe it'll help me with
<v Speaker 1>the Batman. Okay. He comes back. Christopher Nolan's like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>what'd you come up with? He's like nothing, He goes,
<v Speaker 1>what did you do for two weeks? He goes, well,
<v Speaker 1>write comic books, and I came up with this story
<v Speaker 1>idea for Superman. Christopher Nolan, who also likes prastinate, he said,
<v Speaker 1>tell me his story and he's like, okay, well here
<v Speaker 1>it is. It's kind of you know, allegory to christ
<v Speaker 1>and you know, there are all these factors. And Zod
<v Speaker 1>comes in and Christopher Nolan's like, can I produce this movie? Wow?
<v Speaker 1>And David Skoyer is like, well, of course yeah. And
<v Speaker 1>Christopher Nolan's like, hold on, picks up the phone, calls
<v Speaker 1>Warner Brothers and says, Hey, here's the storyline. I'd like
<v Speaker 1>to produce. David's writing it. Here's what the story is.
<v Speaker 1>They can the Superman script that they were working on
<v Speaker 1>and they pick up David s. Koyer's Man Steel.
<v Speaker 2>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>That is amazing. That's a great story. Fantastic. Okay, guys,
<v Speaker 1>before we go any further, we were going to take
<v Speaker 1>a quick break and we are going to do our
<v Speaker 1>Shirley showcase.
<v Speaker 6>That's right.
<v Speaker 2>This week we asked our friends from the thirty something
<v Speaker 2>movie podcast, our good buddies, John, Jeff d bo.
<v Speaker 1>D that's Meg.
<v Speaker 4>Hi, how you doing John.
<v Speaker 1>I've been on the podcast before. I think I can
<v Speaker 1>count as a member. I'll be a remember the thirty
<v Speaker 1>something podcast? Now are.
<v Speaker 2>John, Jeff Pat bow Right?
<v Speaker 1>And I would like to say this is my favorite
<v Speaker 1>eighties and nineties podcast other than our own podcast, of course. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>these are good buddies.
<v Speaker 2>And here's what they had to say, Batman eighty nine
<v Speaker 2>versus Dark Knight.
<v Speaker 6>We are the guys from the thirty something movie podcast,
<v Speaker 6>and the bat signal went up from our good buddies
<v Speaker 6>D and Jason. They set themselves the impossible task of
<v Speaker 6>trying to decide between Batman eighty nine and the Dark Knight.
<v Speaker 6>Then they called us and asked what we thought.
<v Speaker 7>You know, I knew I didn't like those guys. Without
<v Speaker 7>the Joker portrayal in Batman eighty nine, I don't know
<v Speaker 7>that we could have gotten the Joker from Dark Knight.
<v Speaker 7>Because Nicholson leaned a little bit more Caesar Romero. It
<v Speaker 7>kind of took that idea of the Joker off the table,
<v Speaker 7>so that when Dark Knight rolled around, they had to
<v Speaker 7>do something different. Now, the tone of the movie probably
<v Speaker 7>would have for a more demented Joker anyway, but it
<v Speaker 7>definitely took the clownish part of it out of the equation. Now,
<v Speaker 7>how do you choose between the two movies. I don't know,
<v Speaker 7>but I think for me, I think I would have
<v Speaker 7>to say Batman eighty nine Lock it in Spike the Football,
<v Speaker 7>as Jason likes to say.
<v Speaker 8>I mean, both movies are just incredible interpretations on the theme.
<v Speaker 8>I mean, I've got the nostalgia for the eighty nine Batman.
<v Speaker 8>That was one of the first adult movies that I
<v Speaker 8>remember going and seeing with my dad in the theater.
<v Speaker 8>And you know, Michael Keaton just as amazing as Bruce Wayne,
<v Speaker 8>Jack Nicholson fantastic as the Joker. So you have those
<v Speaker 8>wonderful casts. The music is incredible in eighty nine Batman,
<v Speaker 8>the Danny Elfman score, the Prince A soundtrack, and the vehicles,
<v Speaker 8>I mean, the bat Wing and the Batmobile were awesome,
<v Speaker 8>and it had that ethos to it which was just
<v Speaker 8>so refreshing to see. So there's just so many amazing
<v Speaker 8>things in that movie that I it would be hard
<v Speaker 8>not to say, Oh, that's the one that I lean towards.
<v Speaker 8>The Chris Nolan Batman. I mean that was like when
<v Speaker 8>those came out, Wow, this is so different, And I
<v Speaker 8>think it's because it leans so much into the real
<v Speaker 8>and as awesome as Jack Nicholson's joker is. How do
<v Speaker 8>you ignore Heath Ledger's joker?
<v Speaker 6>You narrow down? You have a vote?
<v Speaker 8>Well, didn't I already give the vote? I'm sorry, it's
<v Speaker 8>breaking up, John. Why don't you go to the next person?
<v Speaker 8>But I already said my vote.
<v Speaker 7>I'm reviewing the transcript, and no, there's no vote given.
<v Speaker 6>That's what I thought.
<v Speaker 4>You reject your reality and substitutes his own.
<v Speaker 6>There we go, all right, So we have a no
<v Speaker 6>vote from pat.
<v Speaker 4>Nineteen eighty nine. All the way. It's a classic. It's
<v Speaker 4>quote unquote the original as far as I'm concerned. There's
<v Speaker 4>just so much amazing stuff in there. Nicholson and Keaton
<v Speaker 4>are great. Some lines from it that I still use weekly.
<v Speaker 4>It's gotta be eighty nine for me.
<v Speaker 8>This town needs an enema.
<v Speaker 6>Aesthetically, everything is in Batman eighty nine. That's my favorite batmobile.
<v Speaker 6>Of all of the batmobiles in existence, other than maybe
<v Speaker 6>the sixties TV show, the eighty nine Batman batmobile is
<v Speaker 6>my absolute favorite. Actually, I think I have a model
<v Speaker 6>of it. Yep, I have a model of it back
<v Speaker 6>here on the shelf. The last thing any of us
<v Speaker 6>had ever seen was the campy sixties Batman, and you
<v Speaker 6>know what you saw in the super Friends cartoon on
<v Speaker 6>Saturday mornings. And then we got to see this Batman,
<v Speaker 6>which was dark and serious, still a little campy left
<v Speaker 6>in there. It was the first one to bring something
<v Speaker 6>new like that and really make Batman dark again. And
<v Speaker 6>then The Dark Knight. It's an amazing movie. It is
<v Speaker 6>a such a different Joker than we get from any
<v Speaker 6>other iteration. All Right, I'm gonna be the sacrilegious one.
<v Speaker 6>I might say The Dark Knight because I'm not taking
<v Speaker 6>anything away from Batman eighty nine, because it's just as amazing.
<v Speaker 6>But Heath Ledger's performance is outstanding. I don't know. I
<v Speaker 6>think the overall story of The Dark Knight is just
<v Speaker 6>a little bit more compelling to me. There's just the
<v Speaker 6>layers of plot wise, that's I think just more interesting
<v Speaker 6>and more compell as a movie watcher, Jason and d
<v Speaker 6>Hopefully that helps I don't know if that helps you
<v Speaker 6>make a decision or if your decision is already made.
<v Speaker 6>You've got four other opinions if you want to throw
<v Speaker 6>those into the mix, And so hopefully that helps out, guys.
<v Speaker 6>So We do not envy you the task of having
<v Speaker 6>to make a decision between Batman eight nine and the
<v Speaker 6>Dark Knight. But good luck, and as we always say,
<v Speaker 6>I guess be excellent to each other when it's all done.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, I think I agree with Pat on this one.
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to go with Pat's opinion. What he said
<v Speaker 1>is right. Yeah, we got some love from Batman eighty
<v Speaker 1>nine from these guys. Yeah, we got two votes for
<v Speaker 1>Batman eighty nine, one vote for the Dark Knight, and
<v Speaker 1>one abstain, abstained, abstention, one abstention. Yes, that's all right.
<v Speaker 1>I understand it's a difficult choice. Thanks, guys, we appreciate
<v Speaker 1>you all. Go check out the thirty something movie podcast.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, that's gonna do it for episode two of Batman
<v Speaker 2>Versus Dark Knight.
<v Speaker 9>We're gonna have three parts out of this thing, three
<v Speaker 9>at least, and probably it's little secret special episode to
<v Speaker 9>follow everything up when we go and see The bat
<v Speaker 9>Man and find out how great a movie or not
<v Speaker 9>great a movie this is going to be. If you
<v Speaker 9>haven't done it yet, please hit that follow button on
<v Speaker 9>your podcast app. It costs you nothing at all, and
<v Speaker 9>it does great wonders for us, so please don't forget
<v Speaker 9>to smash that follow button in the face and we
<v Speaker 9>will talk to you next week.
<v Speaker 6>And now photos, it's time for hooting a truck.
<v Speaker 1>Honey, money, money, Who do you trust.