Batman Forever/Trivia


 * Executive Meddling: See What Could Have Been below.
 * Fake American: Jim Carrey, Canadian by birth, as Riddler. Also, Aussie Nicole Kidman.
 * Although to be fair, the latter was born in Hawaii.
 * Hey It's That Guy: The warden of Arkham Asylum at the end of the film is René Auberjonois from Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Boston Legal.
 * Drew Barrymore is one of Two-Face's ladies.
 * R&B divas En Vogue also make a cameo when Dick steals the Batmobile and they "affectionately" call him Batboy.
 * Nan Flannigan appears briefly as a TV reporter.
 * Old Shame: Only if you read it out of context. Val Kilmer enjoyed working on this film and everyone involved and would have been interested in returning once his schedule cleared up, but (fortunately for him) Batman and Robin continued without him. But he was quoted as saying "I've done an absurdly commercial cartoon and now I'm more likely to get hired for a job I couldn't get hired for before because I hadn't done enough movies. It's so rare when an actor gets hired because he's right for the role, it just doesn't figure into it," and people assumed he considered this movie to be an Old Shame.
 * So My Kids Can Watch: Tommy Lee Jones signed on as Two-Face because it was his son's favourite character.
 * What Could Have Been: The original version of Batman Forever, before it was edited to make it more family-friendly. Several of the cut scenes (notably "The Bat Must Die!" and Bruce's encounter with a giant bat) would appear in the music videos for the movie.
 * Unlike Burton, Schumacher is a life-long comic book fan and originally wanted to do a film version of Year One. He had Frank Miller's help drafting a screenplay! But the executives at Warner Bros. wanted something that could be sold to kids...
 * What would have happened had Billy Dee Williams insisted on playing Two-Face?
 * On the DVD featurettes, Billy Dee points out that the chemicals would have made one half of his face lighter than the other, and that this would play into questions of race, or something.
 * Before Schumacher took over from Burton, Scarecrow was going to be in this one, and Brad Dourif had been penciled in to play him.
 * Another comic book fan lobbied to be director before Schumacher was hired. His name? Sam Raimi.
 * Rene Russo was in line to play Chase Meridian when it was still believed that Michael Keaton was going to come back to play Bruce Wayne/Batman, not Val Kilmer. She was replaced by Nicole Kidman because the producers weren't comfortable with the idea of having Batman's love interest be played by an actress rather significantly older than the actor playing him. This in spite the fact Rene Russo is only about five years older than Val Kilmer, who is about eight years older than Nicole Kidman. Plus, Margot Kidder was almost five years older than Christopher Reeve when they played Lois Lane and Clark Kent respectively in the Superman movies.
 * Schumacher also initially wanted Sandra Bullock to have a role in this movie.
 * Leonardo Di Caprio, Scott Speedman and Christian Bale were some of those who auditioned for the role of Robin.
 * Before the helm was turned to Schumacher, Burton supposedly wanted Mickey Dolenz as the Riddler, complete with a question mark carved into his forehead.