30 Years 30 Films - A Celebration Of The Greatest Movies Of Empire's Lifetime

THE PAST THREE DECADES HAVE SEEN MANY MASTERPIECES, BIG AND SMALL, JOIN THE MOVIE PANTHEON. OVER THE NEXT 30 PAGES WE CELEBRATE OUR FAVOURITE FILM FROM EACH YEAR, WITH HELP FROM THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THEM

- Nick De Semlyen, Ian Freer, Dan Jolin, Jeff Dawson, Ben Travis, Helen O'hara, Dan Jolin, John Nugent, Nick De Semlyen

1989 BATMAN

THE ONE THAT CHANGED THE BLOCKBUSTER BUSINESS

THE SUMMER OF 1989 saw madness erupt all over the globe, and it was all thanks to a nocturnal mammal. “It was crazy, weird and bizarre,” says Sam Hamm, co-writer of Tim Burton’s Batman and one of the people responsible for the ensuing Batmania. “There’s nothing you could do but disassociate from it. To be honest, I found it kind of scary. I was grateful when things calmed down a little bit.”

The project, a fresh big-screen spin on the 1930s-created Caped Crusader, had been in development throughout the ’70s and ’80s, nobody quite sure how to make it work. CBS considered shooting a film where Batman went into space. Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy were, at one point, suggested for Batman and Robin. Peter O’Toole was in talks to play the Penguin. Then a gawky, geeky director named Tim Burton took the mantle, and things finally started slotting into place. Hamm, drafted in to put Burton’s dark but whimsical vision on the page, had a good feeling from the off. “I truly thought that Batman was ready to erupt as a phenomenon,” he says. “For a couple of years before the picture came out, you could not go down Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles without seeing young hipsters wearing Batman gear. Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns had just started coming out as Tim and I got together. It was just this sort of presence in the air.”