If you stuck around for the end credits of The LEGO Batman Movie, you might have noticed the names of two people credited as executive producers on the picture. They are Michael Uslan and Benjamin Melniker. Nothing odd there, apart from the small matter of them having absolutely nothing to do with the film. To the best of our knowledge, they had no conversation with director Chris McKay and his team at any time before, during or after the production. But they did pick up a cheque and a credit for their troubles.

Having people listed as executive producers who are ‘hands off’ is nothing particularly fresh, and we looked at just what an executive producer does in this article here.

But what’s interesting about Uslan and Melniker is that they’re credited on every Batman movie since 1989. That includes the assorted animated movies that have gone straight to disc – Batman: Year One, Batman: Under The Red Hood, for instance – as well as the higher profile features. Thus, Uslan and Melniker were executive producers on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, as well as Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.

In all, the pair are listed on just shy of 40 Batman productions. All the more remarkable, because they were only hands on in any degree on just one of them. As you might expect, there’s a bit of a story behind this, one that goes all the way back to Uslan’s younger years, some four decades back.