Acclaimed director Joel Schumacher has been responsible for some classic movie hits over the years, the likes of A Time to Kill, The Client, St. Elmo's Fire, The Lost Boys, and Flatliners - all great flicks directed by Joel Schumacher.
Batman & Robin however, was not one of them.
The 1997 flick saw George Clooney take on the role of the caped crusader while Chris O'Donnell played his trustee sidekick. The movie served as a sequel to Schumacher's box office hit Batman Forever, however it did not live up to fans expectations whatsoever and took a critical slamming at the time. Even Clooney later admitted that "we might have killed the franchise" and called it "a waste of money".
In an interview with Vice recently, Schumacher also voiced his regrets on making the movie: "Look, I apologise. I want to apologise to every fan that was disappointed because I think I owe them that."
He went on to say that his instinct told him not to make a sequel to Batman Forever, but Warner Bros wanted him to. "You know, I just knew not to do a sequel. If you get lucky, walk away. But everybody at Warner Brothers just expected me to do one. Maybe it was some hubris on my part. I had a batting average of 1,000, so I went from falling down a bit after Lost Boys, to a kind of a genius with The Client, a big blockbuster with Batman Forever, then had great reviews with A Time to Kill, so my batting average was good.
"I never planned on being, that dreadful quote, 'a blockbuster king' because my other films were much smaller and had just found success with the audience and not often with the critics, which is really why we wrote them," he explained.
"And then after Batman & Robin, I was scum. It was like I had murdered a baby."
Schumacher blames nobody but himself either: "A lot of it was my choice. No-one is responsible for my mistakes but me.
"I had a long history of fighting for unknowns, for fighting for a little extra budget when we needed it, so nobody never, ever forced me to make a decision I didn't approve of."
The 'unknowns' Schumacher are referring to are the likes of Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland and Matthew McConaughey, all of which he helped launched the career of.
So yeah, it may be time we let Schumacher off the hook for Batman & Robin.
If you fancy even more of an insight into Joel Schumacher, have a read of our movie editor Brian Lloyd's excellent interview with him here.
