Guy Interviews a Guy: Michael Uslan, Executive Producer of The Dark Knight Rises

If you’ve at all been a fan of Batman’s cinematic adventures these last 30-plus years, you can thank producer Michael Uslan for a big part of that. He’s practically the Godfather of Batman on film, shepherding the franchise from Tim Burton’s 1989 film all into next summer’s The Dark Knight Rises, of which he again serves as Executive Producer, as he’s done on every Bat-film.

Uslan’s more than just an avid player on the Bat’s business end; he’s also a legitimate fan. His new book, The Boy Who Loved Batman is both a memoir and a blueprint of a young man who took his passion and made it a reality. GUY had the chance to speak with Mr. Uslan and, while we couldn’t get any TDKR info out of him (believe us, we tried), he still had a great deal to say about a life dedicated to bring Batman to the big screen:

GUY: I read that you were an avid comic book collector growing up. Obviously Batman had a profound effect on you. What resonated about the character and the lore?

Michael Uslan: Batman was the first super-hero I read who had no super-powers. His greatest super power is his humanity and more often than not, he out-thinks his enemies rather than out-slugs them. Secondly, he always had the best super-villains in comic book history, a necessary element to long-term comic book success. And his origin story is so primal that it transcends demographics, borders, and even cultures.

GUY: When did you realize that your Bat-love progressed from appreciation to “I can actually make a ‘Batman’ movie?”

MU: October 3rd, 1979, the day we acquired the rights to Batman to make into films.

GUY: You’ve had a guiding hand in pretty much every Batman project that’s been on film ever since Batman ’89. You tell a great story in your book about an executive who didn’t think Batman would make any money on account of Annie not making any money. How hard was it to get a serious take on Batman into theaters?

MU: It was a ten-year human endurance contest. I was turned down by every studio and told over and over again that I was crazy; that you don’t make serious comic book movies; that you don’t make dark super-heroes; and that no one had ever made a movie out of some old television series.

GUY: At the time, a lot of people questioned the casting of Michael Keaton as The Bat. Obviously he knocked it out of the park, but were people that confident going into production?

MU: Everyone trusted Tim Burton’s vision and genius, and that included the casting of Keaton. And he was right! Audiences watching the first dark, serious comic book super-hero feature film were able to suspend their disbelief and believe Keaton was a Bruce Wayne so driven, so obsessed, to the point of being psychotic, would get dressed up as a bat and go after a Joker.

GUY: Similar to Keaton, a lot of people questioned Heath Ledger’s casting for The Dark Knight. Then the movie came out and Ledger’s Joker is now iconic. What were your thoughts on his casting?

MU: Another genius, Christopher Nolan, never casts the obvious. I don’t think there was one exec in Hollywood who, if asked at that time for a list of twenty actors who could play The Joker would have put Heath’s name down. It was the performance of a lifetime.

GUY: If you could see a Batman movie directed by any filmmaker, alive or dead, that hasn’t already worked on the franchise – who do you choose?

MU: Max Fleischer; Fritz Lang; Orson Welles.

What will become of the Batman franchise after this summer?

GUY: We’ve gone from a time where it was difficult to get a comic book film into theaters to now, where it’s difficult to find a time when there isn’t a comic book film in theaters. At some point do you think the genre becomes overexposed?

MU: Hollywood cannot, in an attempt to cash in on a good thing, just go out and option anything and everything simply because it’s a comic book. It’s still all about great story and colorful, interesting characters. Thus, this summer, I really liked “X-MEN FIRST CLASS” due to a very good story and I loved “Captain America” which almost felt to me like a sequel to “The Rocketeer,” one of my all-time favorite comic book films.