CATWOMAN Director Reveals Why We Didn't See Batman And Where It All Went Wrong For The Movie

CATWOMAN Director Reveals Why We Didn't See Batman And Where It All Went Wrong For The Movie

Catwoman director Pitof has explained why there was never a plan for Batman to make an appearance in the 2004 movie and shares his take on where it ultimately all went wrong for the DC Comics adaptation.

By JoshWilding - Sep 02, 2024 05:09 AM EST
Filed Under: Catwoman
Source: Cinemablend

2024 is the 20th anniversary of Catwoman and the movie has neither aged particularly well (which is ironic given its premise) nor gained many fans over the past two decades.

Despite that, Halle Berry has been embracing the critical and commercial flop both in recent interviews and on social media. We're not entirely sure why as Catwoman originally debuted to overwhelmingly negative reviews and a disappointing $82.4 million box office haul; needless to say, a sequel or revival isn't going to happen.

Cinemablend recently caught up with Catwoman director Pitof and asked whether there was ever a version of the 2004 movie which featured a cameo appearance from Batman, something you'd imagine would have helped its box office prospects.

"No, because it was the opening deal. We wanted Catwoman out of Batman's hand," the filmmaker explained. "We wanted to start something fresh. There were no other characters from the DC comics to bring, because otherwise you will bring something else. The thing was really to start something fresh and new with Catwoman, and then build new villains."

"So here, the whole thing was cosmetics," Pitof added. "The villain was the cosmetics industry. It was more of a concept than one villain."

Despite attempting to approach the source material in a new way, Pitof admitted that when he reached the editing room, Catwoman simply did not come together in the way he'd envisioned.

"After the shoot, when we put the movie together, it didn't work because so much [had] changed during shooting. The pieces were not really fitting together," he said. "We had to rethink completely the whole edit, inverting scenes and adding new scenes. And we had a 10 day reshoot a month before release date! Which is insane! To fix all the little problems the script had."

"I never had the option to have a director’s cut. It was more of, 'Okay, how can we fix it?'" Pitof continued. "I would say the problem of the movie was the script. The script, we all know, had been rewritten a thousand times. When we started the movie at the shoot, the script was not finished."

"We still kept writing the script while editing. So if I had six months [of additional time], I would've put six months before production. Not after!"

Catwoman had been portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer over a decade earlier in Batman Returns and, after this 2004 effort, was shelved until returning in 2012's The Dark Knight Rises courtesy of Anne Hathaway. The anti-hero never showed up in the DCEU but was played by Zoë Kravitz in The Batman

Do you think Catwoman deserves to be celebrated two decades on? Let us know your thoughts in the usual place.

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Malatrova15
Malatrova15 - 9/2/2024, 5:25 AM
But why? ...is it possible to write it in the article title?
LeoAtrox1
LeoAtrox1 - 9/2/2024, 6:20 PM
@Malatrova15 - "We wanted Catwoman out of Batman's hand." They wanted to have freedom with the character and not be tied down to existing narratives.
Malatrova15
Malatrova15 - 9/2/2024, 6:21 PM
@LeoAtrox1 - oh man thanks ... I was about to read the whole thing and click a few ads .
Good save fam!
Knightrider
Knightrider - 9/2/2024, 5:28 AM
I always thought that this Project originally started as a Batman Returns spin off that morphed into this
Slotherin
Slotherin - 9/2/2024, 7:51 AM
@Knightrider - it gives the impression with her origin for sure.
DianaGohan
DianaGohan - 9/2/2024, 8:44 AM
@Knightrider - It did start out as that but clearly by the time they were finally able to not only get the funding and a team together to start making the movie, both Tim Burton and Michelle Pfieffer had no interest in coming back and working on this project so any previous Returns connection had to be scrapped and the story had to be redone. Thus they kept some very VERY minor thematic elements and did their own thing which resulted in the flop that came out 20 years ago.
Sicario
Sicario - 9/2/2024, 5:33 AM
Gotta say though, it's a pretty novel idea to go after the cosmetics industry, I mean I don't think anyone's gonna do that now.

Kinda ironic tho, that halle berry looked like the poster child of bdsm and cosmetics in the movie. I don't think I have even watched the whole movie through even once.

Always funny how these things get greenlit and there's not even a coherent screenplay to begin with. Sort of a good thing really, even big multi billion dollar companies are fumbling through life, just like the rest of us.
ManDeth
ManDeth - 9/2/2024, 6:11 AM
It went wrong when WB hired ALL the wrong people to make & star in it. There is not one good thing about it. Not one good idea. Nothing.
TheClungerine
TheClungerine - 9/2/2024, 6:40 AM
WB been sabotaging DC since the dawn of time.
Equivocal
Equivocal - 9/2/2024, 1:45 PM
@TheClungerine -

yes
when it comes to live action movies
but
when it comes to DC animation...

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TheClungerine
TheClungerine - 9/2/2024, 4:14 PM
@Equivocal - that and games seem to he the only departments they don't sabotage.....although they've been blocking a superman game for a while now 😭
lazlodaytona
lazlodaytona - 9/2/2024, 6:41 AM
They take Batman away from JOKER: Billion+ bucks.
They take Batman away from Catwoman: Nobody cares

Go figure
Urubrodi
Urubrodi - 9/2/2024, 7:01 AM
@lazlodaytona - Quality of the movie matters... Plus Joker is DC's greatest villain
lazlodaytona
lazlodaytona - 9/2/2024, 7:15 AM
@Urubrodi - I know. Just being sarcastically swarmy 😜
LSHF
LSHF - 9/2/2024, 7:12 AM
Nice costume (lots of visible skin).
dagenspear
dagenspear - 9/2/2024, 7:12 AM
God is funny. I've been looking at piecing together a redo for this that operates as a sequel to Batman Returns, but also pulls in elements from comics.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 9/2/2024, 7:39 AM
To Halle’s credit , she’s always embraced the film and her mistake…

I mean this is the same woman who came to accept her Razzie for the movie.

?si=QuDRp0MofuIrdRuh

I admire that she accepts the good with the bad since let’s not forget , she’s an Oscar winner aswell.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 9/2/2024, 7:48 AM
It was a bad movie but atleast it might have helped a bit if it wasn’t so far removed or loosely inspired by the comic character..

Just have Halle Berry be Selina Kyle and if you wanted to have her away from Batman then just have the movie take place in a different city since there is precedent for that and make it like a crime/heist film.

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Granted , I speak from the benefit of hindsight and with modern sensibilities in which comic adaptations are taken more seriously then they were back then unfortunately.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 9/2/2024, 8:04 AM
however I guess it makes sense since the movie was originally developed as a spin-off to Burton’s Catwoman.

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TrentCrimm
TrentCrimm - 9/2/2024, 8:19 AM
That basketball scene definitely didn't help the movies quality, probably the only thing I remember from that movie.

And my god her Catwoman mask gets worse the longer you look at it.
DianaGohan
DianaGohan - 9/2/2024, 8:50 AM
Okay it's pretty clear Pitof is an idiot who is trying to justify his own terrible TERRIBLE movie. And also pretty clear especially with Joker out he thinks he can blame people for "not getting his idea" and "yeah we wanted to do our own thing" when THAT'S NOT what people wanted. The reason Joker worked was because was clear it was a very VERY different kind of comic book film in an age where comic book movies were thriving and popping up everywhere thus standing out meant something more as that was a movie more about society being the actual problem. Pitof can try and claim Catwoman was some feminist film about beauty projects but yeah at the end of the day things only cleared up after Patience beat up and stopped Laurel in a big fight sequence. You know like most EVERY Comic Book movie even that came out at the time, which especially for DC was a rarer occourance so if done well people might have been open to it. But it wasn't and quite frankly you still needed SOME connection as you know even Joker still had the Bruce Wayne/Waynes connection to show it knew where it came from which Catwoman lacked so yeah awful movie, Pitof can try speaking out his ass about why it flopped but it's because his entire concept was dumb and it deserves all the hate it gets.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 9/2/2024, 9:24 AM
@DianaGohan - LORD willing, insulting isn't right. Jesus is Lord!
NinnesMBC
NinnesMBC - 9/3/2024, 1:17 AM
Maybe if they dropped the cosmetics angle it could've helped things a bit.

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