The journey to bringing Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie to the screen began a decade before its eventual release. Producer Michael Uslan first acquired the rights to the series in 1979, and he’s been involved with every Batman-related film since Burton’s, including the Joker movies starring Joaquin Phoenix. Uslan was envisioning a darker film that would be a departure from the Adam West TV series from the 1960s. In the early stages of development, many names were considered for Bruce Wayne, among them Dustin Hoffman and James Caan.
After the success of Stripes in 1981, Ivan Reitman was approached by Warner Bros. to direct the proposed Batman film. Reitman’s pick for Batman was his leading man from Stripes, Bill Murray. Robin, on the other hand, was to be played by Eddie Murphy. In a 2022 interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Murray revealed that he’d had a brief chat with his potential co-star around that time: “I talked to Eddie Murphy about it, and Eddie wanted to play Batman,” he said. “That’s as far as that conversation went.”
At the end of the day, Murray couldn’t picture himself as Batman’s sidekick. “I don’t wanna be the Boy Wonder to anybody,” he explained. “Maybe much earlier when I was a boy.” The other big problem for him was the aesthetics of it all. “I couldn’t do the outfit. Eddie looks good in purple, and I look good in purple. In red and green, I look like one of Santa’s elves,” Murray continued. “There was just a lot of vanity involved in the production. It wasn’t gonna happen.”
Reitman and Murray ultimately chose to do Ghostbusters instead. By the time production wrapped, a Batman movie still hadn’t been made, and Reitman’s offer from Warner Bros. was still good. He was too exhausted to even consider it by then, so they had to find another director. For his part, Uslan admitted that he was relieved Murray didn’t get the part because it wasn’t in line with his vision.
Burton was hired to direct Batman shortly thereafter, and Michael Keaton was cast as Batman/Bruce Wayne. The Robin character didn’t show up in the movies until 1995’s Batman Forever, in which Chris O’Donnell portrayed him. Robin Williams was also considered for the role of the Joker in the 1989 Batman before Jack Nicholson got the part.
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