Joel Schumacher Explains The Bat-Nipples In ‘Batman & Robin’

Batman & Robin is widely considered to not only be one of the worst superhero movies ever made, but also one of the worst films ever made, period. This film is so legendarily awful for a myriad of reasons. The terrible villains, the awful puns and the jaw-dropping suit designs are only part of what made Joel Schumacher’s film so reviled.

Referring back to the Bat-Suit design, the addition of the Bat-Nipples from Batman Forever followed by Batman & Robin is one of the elements within the history of Batman that is most poked fun at. It is hard enough to see an actor of the caliber of George Clooney in this mess at all, but to see him put on that suit is downright laughable.

Schumacher recently spoke with Vice, in which he apologized for the failure of Batman & Robin.

“They obviously had very high expectations after Batman Forever. But perhaps it was the more innocent world in comparison, I don’t know. I just know that I’ll always go down over the nipples on Batman starting with Batman Forever.”

Schumacher also tried to reason why there were nipples added to the Batsuit:

“Well, it was made by Jose Fernandez, who was our brilliant lead sculpture. If you look at Batman and Batman Returns, it was the genius, Bob Ringwood that created those suits, so by the time we got to Batman Forever, the rubber and techniques had gotten so sophisticated. If you look at when Michael Keaton appears in the first suit, you’ll notice how large it is. It was brilliant but the best they could do at the time. By the time Batman Forever came around, rubber molding had become so much more advanced. So I said, let’s make it anatomical and gave photos of those Greek status and those incredible anatomical drawings you see in medical books. He did the nipples and when I looked at them, I thought, that’s cool.”

Knowing that this was during the 1990s before superhero films experienced a renaissance in the 2000s, Schumacher’s sentiments about the anatomical suit seemed interesting in theory. Obviously, the execution showcased that sometimes things are best kept in the concept art.

But hey, without history you are bound to repeat the same mistakes. Thankfully, each new design of the Batsuit in the newest iterations of the films have gotten consistently better, with Ben Affleck’s Batsuit being the best by far.

Batman will return to the big screen when Justice League opens in theaters on November 17, 2017.

Source: Vice