Batman Returns writer Daniel Waters is opening up about Tim Burton’s canceled Catwoman spin-off movie.
Speaking with IndieWire, Waters discussed some ideas that he and Burton had for a Catwoman spin-off movie that would have starred Michelle Pfeiffer. According to Waters, Burton wanted to make an $18 million black-and-white movie, while his idea had similar vibes to Prime Videos’ The Boys.
“He wanted to do an $18 million black and white movie, like the original ‘Cat People,’ of Selina just lowkey living in a small town,” Waters said. “And I wanted to make a ‘Batman’ movie where the metaphor was about Batman. So I had her move to a Los Angeles version of Gotham City, and it’s run by three asshole superheroes. It was The Boys before The Boys. But he got exhausted reading my script.”
What else do we know about the canceled Catwoman movie?
Burton and Waters planned to make a Catwoman spin-off movie shortly after the release of 1992’s Batman Returns. Waters previously spoke to Film Review magazine in 1995, per Den of Geek, about the movie’s plot, saying, “After the traumas of the Batman Returns she has amnesia, and she doesn’t really remember why she has all these bullet holes in her body, so she goes to relax in Oasisburg. What Gotham City is to New York, Oasisburg is to Las Vegas-Los Angeles-Palm Springs. [It’s a] resort area in the middle of the desert. It’s run by superheroes, and the movie has great fun at making fun at the whole male superhero mythos. Then they end up being not very good at all deep down, and she’s got to go back to that whole Catwoman thing.”
The project lost steam, as Burton and Pfeiffer went on to make other projects. The Batman franchise continued with 1995’s Batman Forever and 1997’s Batman & Robin, while a reworked Catwoman movie starring Halle Berry eventually released in 2004.
