Imagine a Batman movie with Nicolas Cage as the Scarecrow and Courtney Love as Harley Quinn.

This may sound like a mad fever dream, but it came close to actually happening in the wake of 1997's Batman & Robin.

Everett Collection



Prior to that franchise-killing film's release, director Joel Schumacher and I Am Legend screenwriter Mark Protosevich teamed up to work on a script that would return Batman to his dark roots as he faced a roster of psychotic supervillains.

Titled Batman Unchained, the film would have starred George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell with Jack Nicholson's Joker making a comeback to bring the Tim Burton and Schumacher films full circle.

Schumacher and Protosevich revealed that they had settled on Cage's Scarecrow and Courtney Love's Harley Quinn as new villains to introduce.



"It was going to be very dark," Schumacher told The Hollywood Reporter. "I remember going to the set of Face/Off and asking Nic Cage to play the Scarecrow."

Protosevich said that his Harley Quinn would've been "sadistic in a mischievous, fun sense", with the character learning that The Joker was her father and setting out to get revenge on Batman.

After learning of the Dark Knight's secret identity, she teams up with Scarecrow to poison Bruce Wayne with fear gas to drive him insane and get him committed to Arkham Asylum. There he hallucinates visions of past foes to pave the way for cameos from The Penguin (Danny DeVito), Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones), The Riddler (Jim Carrey) and The Joker (Jack Nicholson).

Warner Bros Pictures

Warner Bros Pictures

Warner Bros Pictures

Moviestore Collection



"Joel wanted to tie up all of the films. The Tim Burton films and his films, building up to this moment," Protosevich explained.

The screenwriter added that he took a meeting with Hole singer at the time he was writing Unchained, although the pair never discussed Batman in detail.

"I think she had heard about the possibility of Harley Quinn being in the new Batman and was thinking she would be good for it," he said. "But we didn't really talk about that. We talked about a lot of other things. It was certainly one of the better lunches I've ever had in my career in showbusiness."



After Batman & Robin opened to a critical backlash and a disappointing box office opening weekend, Warner Bros dropped Unchained, which Protosevich was told would've been one of the most expensive films ever made.

"They were going to wait and see what they were going to do with Batman," he said, "The Joel Schumacher-driven Batman train was taken off the rails."

Warner Bros waited eight more years to relaunch the series with Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale's origin story Batman Begins. The film celebrates its 10th anniversary today (June 15).

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