The Dark Knight Bat-mania 08 vs 89

[ej_monk84]

First and foremost, I apologize if there is already a thread on this topic.

However, with the recent news of theaters adding 6am shows and IMAX tickets being sold out and just the fact that The Dark Knight message boards on here and imdb have been going strong ever since I can remember, I wonder if anyone can recall the original Bat-mania enough to compare. Given, there was no internet back then, so communication between fans was more limited, but that aside, this just feels like it could surpass the hype of the original Batman film.

Thoughts?

 

[Mike53421]

Everywhere I seem to look there is something Batman-related right now, and I love it.

Getting off the train this morning I was met with a giant Joker poster (on the side of the next train). Then Union Station in Toronto is all done-up, people are talking and excited, this is amazing.

 

[Drizzle]

I'd give the slight edge to '89 because the logo was everywhere. True, I wasn't even old enough to remember then, but it's common knowledge.

With TDK, I'm seeing a lot of the posters on bus stations. Not to mention the promotions in stores like K-Mart, Hot Topic and Domino's Pizza. And there's huge displays of merchandise in Toys R Us and Target. I'd say TDK is heavily promoted, but still, it's not the most promoted movie this summer. I'd give that title to "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull".

 

[StillTheKing]

I don't see much promotion around me, like posters and ads and other stuff. I wasn't around back in 89, so I have no idea.

 

[jokermatt]

I loved that year. Ghostbusters 2, Back to the Future 2, and Indy 3 but nothing topped Batman. The logo was everywhere. If the internet had been around back then like it is now I couldn't imagine how it would have had any bigger hype. It was in the papers and on the local news, everyone was covering this movie. And the problems that we are having now about things selling out and people not being able to find things you can forget about. I'm surprised that stores weren't changing their names to Bat-Mart. I sure many managers lost their jobs in 90 because of the huge differene in sells form one year to the next.
While this movie is getting a lot of hype, some unfortunately from Heath's death, it doesn't come close to the attention that 89 got.

 

[up2nogood316]

i wish i could remember what it was like in 89 when Batman came out.. i was like 6 or something lol, the earliest memory i have of that film was pretty much crapping my pants in the mirror scene when jack first sees himself and smashes it.. my imagination was like..ah man he must look really scary lol

 

[Figs]

When I went to Borders to get a copy of the new EW magazine the checkout lady saw the cover and was talking non stop about TDK with me while I was paying. She looked roughly in her 50-60's.

She said she had read an article about the movie online and it got her and her husband curious and so they watched a number of the trailers. The lady wouldn't shut up about how awesome a lot of the shots were. I take it she watched that Comcast thing about shooting it in Imax because she was talking about that a lot as well.

I can't say if the hype behind this film is larger than Batman '89 because I was only 7 or 8 when that came out and can't quite remember it all.

I do know that aside from Ledger's death, the Imax factor is definitely turning heads.

 

[INVAR]

I remember the Batmania of '89 very well.

My eldest daughter was a year old - and you saw that logo everywhere.

Up until that time, Batman was largely still remembered in the public eye from the Adam West TV show that I grew up with as a kid. But the trailers clearly showcased a much darker Batman that most of us comic fans from the late '70's and early 80's would hope would one day get the same treatment we saw with Superman the Movie ten years prior.

The TV hype was astounding - mostly because of Jack Nicholson's Joker which featured in almost every promo spot I saw, so I think most of the public was eager to see him as the Joker, especially after what he did in Kubrick's The Shining.

Most of us were major groaners on learning Mr. Mom (Keaton) was going to be Bats, but the theatrical trailer pretty much put that worry to rest because the shots of Bats were dark and not the "Kapow' "Zowey!" stuff we feared.

I remember opening weekend - I lived in Chitown's suburbs at the time. The local news at 5 had a traffic chopper over Woodfield Mall's Theater 1 & 2 and the line was literally around the building with cops directing traffic into the parking lot. We had not seen lines like that since Jedi in 1983 - so I knew that making it out to see it Friday night were slim to none.

I met my brother Saturday night for the 10 PM showing there, as all the earlier shows were sold out. We had to arrive about three hours before showtime to get tickets - and stood in line with a mob of people. One guy in line had just got back from Toys R US with a a Toy Biz Joker and Batmobile (The joker was not a Nicholson mold - it was the comic book rendition of him). But the crowd was eager and when we got in and got seated - it was oversold and they had to seat folks down on the floor in front.

The film was a crowd pleaser, but even back then, my criticism was that it should have been the "Joker" movie because it seemed Nicholson had twice the screen time as Batman did. I saw it 6 times that Summer. But the hype lived on throughout the entire Summer ( I think Batman came out in June) - and it was still at the theater in September.

Merchandise was somewhat spotty - I had some Ertle die cast Batwing and Batmobiles that were out in July. The comic books and the Movie programs of course were everywhere. I remember some kind of Batman cereal with a plastic Batman bank with a color sticker of Keaton's face on it. I built the model kits of the Batmobile and Batwing.

November restarted the hype all over again because the VHS of the movie came out then and many of us pre-ordered the tape because new titles sold out quick at Blockbuster or Suncoast.

But yeah, lots of hype that Summer - it was the Summer of Batman.

For that reason I cannot say that this is a Summer of Batman as it was back then, but I am as stoked to see The Dark Knight as I was Batman in '89. This hype is a tad different - but still seems to be as eagerly anticipated as the 1989 film was among fans.

What a difference it is today, compared to 3 years ago when Batman Begins had a "quiet" opening and simply just grew along slowly all Summer long.

Seeing BBegins in Imax was truly a mind-bender, I cannot wait to get a chance to see TDK in Imax - But I will have to wait as there are no Imax theaters anywhere within a 3 hour's drive of me.

 

[Andrex]

But the hype lived on throughout the entire Summer ( I think Batman came out in June) - and it was still at the theater in September.

Yes, every Batman film except The Dark Knight has come out in June.

 

[Drizzle]

Are 89 and 08 really the only Bat-Mania summers? I seem to remember a lot of promotions for "Batman Forever" back in 1995. The question mark logo, the McDonalds cups, and "Kiss From A Rose". Sure, the movie wasn't that great but the marketing sure was effective. I was only 7 at the time, but I remember "Batman Forever" being the big movie of that summer.

 

[ross2287]

Are 89 and 08 really the only Bat-Mania summers? I seem to remember a lot of promotions for "Batman Forever" back in 1995. The question mark logo, the McDonalds cups, and "Kiss From A Rose". Sure, the movie wasn't that great but the marketing sure was effective. I was only 7 at the time, but I remember "Batman Forever" being the big movie of that summer.

Actually, now that you mention it, I remember that too.

 

[byte19]

i saw '89 42 times in the theater. the hype behind that movie was astounding. so much so the Wendy's I was working when I was 20 had the entire staff nicknamed characters from the movie!!! with me being Bats, the lunch team had nicknames Eckhart, Grissom, Jack, Vicky, even Alfred and Bob!! that summer was oh so cool for me, and this summer, records are meant to be broken!!

 

[Batmatic]

I remember as a kid, I had a boatload of Batman items from '89. I was f*n obsessed. I had two posters (1 with just Batman, the other with him and the Batmobile), an ERTL Batmobile, the ToyBiz action figures (Joker, Batman and Bob), plush toys, the video game, trading cards, etc...

I honestly was too young to even pay attention to the hype, but it was the film that started my interest in comic books.

 

[Lead_Tester]

Hype for TDK is bigger than for SpiderMan

 

[Lead_Tester]

also this

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight/

 

[Irony-Man]

You can't understand the hype without referencing the casting controversy. Warner Brothers had had Batman in development for so long - like Spider-man long - and this was to be their flagship franchise after the implosion of Superman. Finally, we had an announcement of the movie going ahead with the wrong director - Tim Burton, who at that time was known only for "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" and "Beetlejuice" - and the wrong star - "pudgy, half-balding, runt" (to paraphrase some dearly departed members of the Hype) Michael Keaton who was known as a lightweight comedic actor. Now remember kids this was before the internet was in wide use so we had to get our news from the mainstream media, fanzines, or in my case, the guy who ran my local comic book store. When we wanted to talk about the movie we had to actually get together over coffee - normal coffee, not a Grande half-fat mocha latte - or a beer -again from a mainstream brewerey like Labatt's, the most exotic beer we had available was Foster's from Australia, "Gee, Uncle Irony, how did you ever survive?" or we could call each other on an actual telephone that was conected to the wall with a wire and may even had had dials rather than buttons. I'll give you a minute to get that horrible image out of your mind.

Anyways, a couple of things started to happen. Keaton appeared in a movie called the "Dream Team" that showed a dramatic, psychotic edge. Burton started to talk about how he wanted to explore the psychological fracture of the character and how he wanted to show Gotham as a gloomy, Gothic character in the movie. Jack Nicholson was cast as the Joker. Then, WB released a trailer featuring the fight scene between Batman and the Joker's goons and the momentum started to swing.

Suddenly everything was Bat related. People started to get excited about the movie. Our fears that the casting of Keaton had meant a return to the 60"s camp version of Batman receded as we saw the trailer and heard Burton and Keaton discuss the movie seriously.

Then the movie came out. And whether you ended up liking it or not, whether you felt that Keaton was miscast or not, whether you thought that it concentrated too much on the Joker at the expense of Bruce Wayne, you had to admit that they had treated the material with respect, seriously and in with a depth that was usually missing when you discussed a "comic book movie". Comic books and comic book movies would never be the same.

 

[Iron_Stark]

Are 89 and 08 really the only Bat-Mania summers? I seem to remember a lot of promotions for "Batman Forever" back in 1995. The question mark logo, the McDonalds cups, and "Kiss From A Rose". Sure, the movie wasn't that great but the marketing sure was effective. I was only 7 at the time, but I remember "Batman Forever" being the big movie of that summer.

Yeah, '95 was pretty huge with the question mark logo, McDonalds, Seal and Jim Carrey really breaking out.

But Batmania '89 was really big, I remember the logo being everywhere, you couldn't walk down the street and not see the logo.

I'd rank '89 first with '95 and '08 neck and neck.

 

[fabman]

I was 5 when Batman Forever came out, and I lived in Germany, and there was lots of hype. I used to watch MTV all day to catch the videos of U2 and Seal, and also watch commercials to see the Batman Forever TV Spot. I also remember being dissapointed (and I was just 5 years old) because almost everything had changed.

 

[jokermatt]

95 was a good year up until the movie came out.

 

[DaRkVeNgeanCe]

No Batman movie let alone comic book movie will ever have the amount of hype that 89 had, that film started the hype trend in general and set up so many thing for future films. This film thought is the closest thing Ive seen like that other than the Star Wars prequels!

 

[Mike53421]

Is the hype documented on the Batman 1989 DVD at all?

 

[Drizzle]

Is the hype documented on the Batman 1989 DVD at all?

They mention it in one of the documentaries. They have the cast and crew talking about it, footage of the premiere, etc.

 

[DaRkVeNgeanCe]

They mention it in one of the documentaries. They have the cast and crew talking about it, footage of the premiere, etc.

Ya but still not enough footage for me!

 

[Hole Shot]

Batman 89 also gave us this...

 

[Magenta666]

Batman 89 also gave us this...