Bat Rambling

1989's summer movie season was an historic bloodbath. In about a month, the record for having the biggest opening weekend was broken three times. First by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, then Ghostbusters II, and then finally by Tim Burton's Batman, which opened 25 years ago today. I was 12 going on 13 when it opened, and I was the target audience. I had started reading Batman comics a few months earlier, just after the "A Death in the Family" storyline.

Cover art for "A Death in the Family" graphic novel.

But I didn't get to see it on June 23. Or the 22nd, when it opened early. Or the 24 or 25. I didn't get to see Batman until Monday, June 26. That was tough for 12 year old me to handle. I don't want to blame my mom for this, but it was her fault (sorry mom). My Bar Mitzvah was on June 24 and she wouldn't let me be out at night, thinking I needed my rest for the big day. I don't think she understood the desire to see this movie. On June 24, my cousins came over to go to the synagogue with us. Guess what? They went to the advance showing on the 22 and decided to re-enact many of the highlights of the film for me. To this day, when I see the Joker dancing and shooting Grissom, I'm reminded of my cousin Alan's recreation. The line, "Bob, gun" also sticks in my head from this early spoiler.

As mentioned above, I did get to see Batman opening week. My mom took me to the AMC Marlton 8 in the evening. I won't go into too many details, I'll just say I left the screening less than impressed. In fact, it was the only time I've seen that movie in the theater. I never had any desire to revisit it on the big screen. I've seen it a few times on home video, and I still don't like it. It was an odd feeling. Summer 1989 belonged to Batman. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing a Bat-symbol advertising the movie. It was the movie everyone was talking about. I kept reading the comics, too. But for some reason this movie has never connected with me and I'm still baffled by its popularity.

Thankfully there was one thing that came out of the movie that I did enjoy, and that was Danny Elfman's score. It wasn't released until later in the summer. Instead, the big Batman soundtrack that was in all of the stores was an album of Prince songs, only some of which were in the movie. The Elfman score was released though, and I remember finding it and buying it immediately. I found it on cassette first, so that's what I listened to. A short time later I found it on CD, and I bought that, too. It became one of those albums imprinted onto my brain. Which was fortunate!

The original CD album cover.

A few years ago, I found out that La-La Land Records was working on an expanded release of the original CD. I called them and asked if I could work on it, since I was familiar with this score. I was told they had a producer, but if they had any problems they'd get in touch with me. It turns out, there were some issues with the materials they had and things were missing. I was asked to see if I could locate some of these missing cues. I made some calls, we brought in some more elements, and we were able to piece together the score. The CD was completed on time and they debuted it at Comic-Con in 2010, where it was a big success. At that convention, Danny Elfman was interviewed by Jeff Bond (who wrote the notes for the La-La Land album) and while this panel was meant to plug another project, our CD got mentioned!

Danny Elfman and Jeff Bond at Comic-Con in 2010.

Since then I've had the opportunity to work on the sequel scores, "Batman Returns" and "Batman Forever" and remain hopeful that someday we'll get to complete the series with "Batman & Robin", which never had a score release.

Here I am with Danny Elfman.

Later, he signed the CD I co-produced!