Cmon, Tim Burton's Batman was overhyped something fierce. I still remember being awestruck at the advertisements for it, like 9 months in advance. Ya just didn't do that back then! It was too long before the film.
The so-called trailers were just a black screen, the music, and ended with that stupid yellow insignia. And how the audience cheered!
I was like, "Da fuck is this shit?!"
And the merchandise! Every dipshit and his uncle wandered around all summer long with black baseball caps brandishing stupid yellow bats. And still four months before the movie was due. And two months before a real trailer started showing some actual film footage.
And then the TV commercials appeared. And my mother ominously shuddered, "Oh, that Joker is really dark and serious in this film..." I suppose Jack Nicholson's Joker was seriously bad-ass compared to Cesar Romero's howling performances in the TV series.
And I marvelled at a movie where the villain gets more advertising time than the hero. That was a groundbreaking idea. Every shot was of Nicholson as a gangster or Joker. Only a sliver of the Batman appeared between the next Nicholson shot. (I suppose that's because Nicholson was the big star; the predecessor having been Superman, where Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando got all the face time in the ads, even though the movie was called Superman, starring some unknown guy called Christopher Reeves.)
And... finally... Batman appeared.
My brother saw it eight times. He complained how the New Haven crowds were stiff cadavers compared to the Boston crowds, who shouted and howled during the whole movie, rising to a shrieking crescendo of glee when the Bat Plane soared in front of the moon, appearing like the Batman insignia!
And gradually, Batman faded away. More merchandising, video games, etc. But less and less.
Tim Burton's Batman set the trend for modern movie hype: Start early, start quietly, and increase the volume and merchandising as time goes on.
The method was perfected with MALCOLM X, when all the brothas were duped into buying X-shit like a whole year in advance!!
I haven't seen the Dark Knight yet. I was bored with Batman Begins. Tim Burton's Batman was entertaining. Its three sequels got progressively irritating as Burton's replacement attempted to recreate the gaudy stupidity of the TV series.
Jurched
