Batman Returns writer reveals Catwoman spin-off was “The Boys before The Boys”

The proposed Catwoman spin-off that would have followed Batman Returns is one of the most well-known pieces of movie trivia in history, but now a writer has revealed his proposed script would have resembled Prime Video’s The Boys.

There is perhaps no more infamous moment than the immediate aftermath of 1992’s Batman Returns. The film, intended to capitalize on the record-shattering success of 1989’s Batman, instead left fans with a foul taste in their mouths.

Batman Returns was a bizarre movie. Its tone was so dark that children were scared, and its characters so bizarre that adults – even hardcore comics fans – weren’t sure what they were seeing. The film turned a solid profit at the box office but was a pale shadow of what Warner Bros was expecting after Bat-mania swept the globe in 1989.

That failure led to director Tim Burton leaving the franchise and the next film, Batman Forever, distancing itself from the macabre elements. Before that, though, fans almost got an unusual spin-off: a satirical superhero film starring Catwoman.

Tim Burton’s Catwoman film was almost a satire like The Boys

Speaking with IndieWire, Batman Returns screenwriter Daniel Water explained that he and Burton had been in disagreement over the direction of the Catwoman spin-off. Buton, true to form, wanted to make a black-and-white film styled after ’40s horror flick The Cat People, while Water was looking for something a little more tongue-in-cheek.

“I wanted to make a ‘Batman’ movie where the metaphor was about ‘Batman,’” Water said. “So I had her move to a Los Angeles version of Gotham City, and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. It was ‘The Boys’ before ‘The Boys.’ But he got exhausted reading my script.”

The Catwoman spin-off is a fairly notorious piece of history in relation to Batman Returns. The original script for the film follows the tradition of the other Burton-era villains, leaving viewers to believe she had perished.

Warner Bros, however, was eager to expand the franchise. After a strong reaction from test audiences, Warner Bros demanded a pick-up shot of Catwoman for the film’s finale so that viewers would know she survived and began pre-production on a spin-off.

That spin-off never truly materialized. The plans eventually shaped in such a way that they became Catwoman, a 2004 Halle Berry vehicle that was critically panned. Today the film is best known for Berry showing up to accept the numerous Razzies it won.

Fans will always wonder what the Catwoman spin-off could have been, but the potential for additional stories has been realized in other media. Pfeiffer’s Catwoman was said to have married Bruce Wayne in The CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, while the Burton-era Batman story continues today in DC’s Batman ’89 comics.

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