The comic book genre continues to be wildly popular, thanks to various cinematic universes currently in play. But long before co-CEO James Gunn created the DCU, there were the Batman movies. That franchise began with Tim Burton's pair of movies, before Joel Schumacher took over for two more titles (all of which are streaming with an HBO Max subscription). Chris O'Donnell starred as Dick Grayson/ Robin in the Schumacher sequels, and recently explained what went wrong with Batman & Robin. Although I have to admit I totally love that 1997 camp classic.
Fans who watched the DC movies in order will recall how the tone changed when late filmmaker Joel Schumacher took over for Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. O'Donnell played Batman's sidekick in both of those titles, and during an appearance on I've Never Said This Before with Tommy DiDario, he addressed what happened with the somewhat infamous latter movie. In his words:
Warner Brothers just got greedy on it. I mean, they they used to wait three years before they would do a sequel and that was kind of the pattern. And the first the first one we did Batman Forever was such a huge success that they said let's let's do another one.
Points were made. Batman & Robin came out just two years after Batman Forever, which means that pre-production might have begun shortly after the first Schumacher movie was released. And for O'Donnell's money, it was corporate greed that resulted in the project being more campy and less well-received than its predecessor.
Article continues belowPlenty of folks like Batman & Robin, but you can't deny that it leans heavily on camp. It was a box office and critical failure, and was responsible for the Batman franchise being dropped altogether. For his part, Joel Schumacher was planning another project called Batman Unchained before the studio dropped it.
Later in the same interview, the Grey's Anatomy alum went on to share how the studio simply kept throwing money at Batman & Robin. O'Donnell shared his perspective, offering:
At the same time, The Fugitive had just come out, and that movie [clears throat] was an absolute disaster when they were making it, but they just kept throwing money at it. They fixed it up. They figured it out, and it was like one of the greatest movies. I I love The Fugitive. I think they just thought, you know, let's just go to production. We'll we'll wing it. We'll figure it out. Akiva will write the script. Joel will figure it out and it just it was a mess, you know, and it we just was not, it got very campy.
The camp factor is part of the reason why the 1997 DC blockbuster has so many fans today, and why it's become a bit of a cult classic. Batman & Robin's inherent queerness is also something that many young fans connected with, and why Chris O'Donnell was countless LGBTQ+'s first crush. So while it's ended up aging surprisingly well, both critics and audiences weren't fond of the movie upon its release.
Batman & Robin is streaming on HBO Max, along with old and new DC titles. The next upcoming DC movie hitting theaters is Supergirl on June 26th as part of the 2026 movie release list. Hopefully, O'Donnell is able to appreciate the 1997 movie's legacy sooner rather than later.
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