Schumacher, ‘Batman’ films director, dies at 80
Joel Schumacher, best known for directing two camp classic “Batman” movies in the 1990s, has died. He was 80.
The filmmaker died peacefully following a year-long battle with cancer, The Associated Press has confirmed.
Schumacher wore a variety of hats in Hollywood, making his big-screen debut as a director in 1981 with sci-fi comedy “The Incredible Shrinking Woman,” starring Lily Tomlin as a suburban housewife who shrinks to a doll’s height.
In 1985, he scored a box-office hit with “St. Elmo’s Fire,” a coming-of-age Brat Pack movie featuring Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Andie MacDowell and Demi Moore.
Following his successful forays into horror with 1987’s “The Lost Boys” and 1990’s “Flatliners,” Schumacher took on his most expensive projects yet with a pair of “Batman” franchise movies: 1995’s “Batman Forever,” starring Val Kilmer in the title role, and 1997’s “Batman & Robin,” featuring George Clooney as the Caped Crusader.
The movies were largely dismissed by critics as too jokey and family-friendly, particularly coming off Tim Burton’s darker franchise installments “Batman” (1989) and “Batman Returns” (1992). But Schumacher’s colorful takes on the popular superhero have since been embraced by younger audiences as cult favorites.
“I got the sense that there was absolutely no desire to allow me to do anything darker than what I did, but you can’t please every fan,” Schumacher told Forbes in 2015 about the movies’ legacy.
Born and raised in New York, Schumacher attended the Parsons School for Design and Fashion Institute of Technology, working as a fashion designer and helping manage a hip boutique named Paraphernalia (made popular by Andy Warhol).
After moving to Los Angeles in 1971, Schumacher got his start in the film industry as a costume designer for movies such as Woody Allen’s “Sleeper” and “Interiors.”
He moved into screenwriting in the mid-1970s: writing the screenplay for 1978’s “The Wiz,” as well as cult films “Car Wash” and “Sparkle,” released in 1976.
More recently, Schumacher directed an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” in 2004, and two episodes of Netflix’s “House of Cards” in 2013.