Tim Burton gives a big ‘go f**k yourself’ to the studio approving nipples on Batman’s suit after his departure

Tim Burton was once ridiculed a bit for making Batman a bit too dark following the release of 1992’s Batman Returns. Warner Bros. was so taken aback by the response to Burton’s Batman sequel that they went MUCH lighter with 1995’s Batman Forever, which saw Joel Schumacher take over in the director’s chair. Now that the studio is embracing darker tones as the franchise has moved along, particularly in this year’s The Batman, Burton finds it comical that he was pushed out because his ideas were deemed too dark at the time.

During a chat with Empire Magazine, Burton revealed that he has not seen The Batman yet (he did note that, “I’d like to see it”) but he added, “It is funny to see this now because all these memories come back of, ‘It’s too dark,’ So, it makes me laugh a little bit.” Here is more of what Burton had to say:

“[Back then] they went the other way. That’s the funny thing about it. But then I was like, ‘Wait a minute. Okay. Hold on a second here. You complain about me, I’m too weird, I’m too dark, and then you put nipples on the costume? Go fuck yourself.’ Seriously. So yeah, I think that’s why I didn’t end up [doing a third film.]”

The nipples on the costume are a reference to nipples being added to the Batsuit in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. This was the brainchild of Schumacher and the franchise’s lead sculptor Jose Fernandez. When speaking to Mel Magazine earlier this month, Fernandez stated that the nipples worked much better in Batman Forever because they weren’t as pronounced on the suit.

“It wasn’t fetish to me, it was more informed by Roman armor — like Centurions. And, in the comic books, the characters always looked like they were naked with spray paint on them — it was all about anatomy, and I like to push anatomy. I don’t know exactly where my head was at back in the day, but that’s what I remember. And so, I added the nipples. I had no idea there was going to end up being all this buzz about it.”

As far as Tim Burton being too dark, the director feels like that really isn’t the case. He said, “I’m not just overly dark. That represents me in the sense that…that’s how I see things. It’s not meant as pure darkness. There’s a mixture. I feel really fondly about [‘Batman Returns’] because of the weird experiment that it felt like.”

I’m not trying to defend Warner Bros. by any means in regards to Batman Returns but maybe their issues with the film go beyond it being too dark. I always felt like Batman Returns felt more like a Tim Burton movie rather than a Batman movie. It has a lot of his quirks, which I Iove, but I can see the studio being concerned about the direction at the time. It is kind of funny he thinks putting nipples on the Batsuit is far darker or weirder than anything he ever did and for some, he might be right.

What are YOUR thoughts on Tim Burton’s assessment of Warner Bros. embracing Batman’s darker side after how they treated him after Batman Returns?