Tim Burton, photographed exclusively for Empire in London on 18 May 2022.
PORTRAITS STEVE SCHOFIELD DIGITAL IMAGING JACEY
TIM BURTON
strides down the staircase of his London home, reassuringly dressed head-to-toe in black, save for a pair of black-and-white stripy socks (can you describe them as Burton-esque if they’re worn by the actual Tim Burton?). He greets Empire warmly, happy to reminisce about Batman Returns — ostensibly a superhero film, but absolutely a Tim Burton film.
His first instalment, 1989’s brooding Batman, was a massive hit, changing the blockbuster landscape forever, paving the way for an entire industry. With so much riding on it, though, and with many other voices involved, it was a somewhat difficult experience for Burton, who then went off to make his passion project Edward Scissorhands. Yet inevitably talk soon turned to a Batman sequel and, with the promise of increased creative control, he decided to come back for more.
Batman Returns, written by Heathers hotshot Daniel Waters (and later taken to the finish line by Wesley Strick), was a glorious, twisted, magical labour of love that deployed Gotham City as its playground, with Burton free to indulge his most fantastical whims. This time, Batman (once again Michael Keaton, once again cool as you like) would face a magnificent menagerie of villains: Michelle Pfeiffer’s damaged, unpredictable Catwoman, Danny DeVito’s drooling Penguin, and Christopher Walken’s corrupt Max Shreck. The result was a unique vision that hasn’t dated a jot — even if its more subversive excesses did upset some audience members at the time, leading to a lesser box-office and a change in direction from Warner Bros., who would then hire Joel Schumacher to take the series to less upsetting, less inspired places.
Three decades on, Burton is ready to tell Empire the full story, frequently with a giggle. Afterwards, he leads us into a room housing a pinball machine tied to the 1989 film. “They didn’t make one for Batman Returns,” he chuckles. As he explains, this one wasn’t exactly engineered to be fun for all the family…
Batman was an enormous success. Do you think a sequel was always expected?
No, I don’t think so. It was interesting, because those were the days before… “Franchise”; you’d never heard that term before. There were franchises, but that word wasn’t used, and people didn’t think that way, quite as they do now. A few years later, you’d hear the word “tentpole”. They use these circus terms for that franchise mentality, which is, obviously, where we’re at. I never heard the word “franchise” on Batman. On the second one, I started to hear that word for the first time.