Movies - TV
Joel Schumacher's Unmade Batman & Robin Sequel Sounded A Lot Like Arkham Knight
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin" was assumed to be a surefire hit in 1997, and screenwriter Mark Protosevich even worked out a 150-page script for its follow-up, "Batman Unchained." When "Batman & Robin" flopped, however, "Batman Unchained" was canceled, but in 2015, something akin to the latter film appeared: the video game "Batman: Arkham Knight."
In Protosevich's script, Batman faces his fears, as the Scarecrow and Harley Quinn attempt to drive him mad and commit him to Arkham Asylum, with Scarecrow's nightmare gas resurrecting the Joker in dream form. Meanwhile, in "Arkham Knight," Batman goes mad from a hit of the Scarecrow’s fear gas and a tainted blood transfusion that makes him hallucinate the Joker.
Both storylines examine Batman's relationship with the Joker and how the villain will always be hanging over the hero, even subconsciously. Madness has always been something of a background theme in the Batman feature films, and it seems both "Batman Unchained" and "Batman: Arkham Knight" were made to explore how insane it is to be a Batman.