It might be hard to believe now, but Batman Forever was a monster-sized hit back in 1995. With Joel Schumacher’s success as director, and Batman & Robin already slated for 1997, it seemed the helmer would return for a third turn at the franchise -- titled Batman Unchained -- that almost cast Courtney Love as Harley Quinn.

Courtney Love in Man on the Moon (1999)

According to The Hollywood Reporter , I Am Legend screenwriter Mark Protosevich was hired by Warner Bros. to write a third Shumacher Batman movie that had Scarecrow and Harley Quinn as the main antagonists, along with cameos from previous Batman movie villains, played by the films’ original actors.A toxin-induced hallucination from the Scarecrow would have Batman face Danny DeVito as The Penguin, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, Jim Carrey as The Riddler, and lastly, Jack Nicholson as the Joker.During post-production on Batman & Robin, Protosevich wrote a 150-page first draft of Batman Unchained (sometimes referred to as Batman Triumphant in news reports), wherein Harley was the Joker’s daughter and a toymaker -- rather than his girlfriend -- who the screenwriter describes as “sadistic in a mischievous, fun sense.” In the script, Harley seeks revenge on Batman after discovering he had a hand in the accident that turned her father into The Joker (“Think about the future!”)With plans of a complex, conflicted Harley Quinn in the film, Protosevich met for lunch with singer turned actress Courtney Love (then a recent Golden Globe nominee for her role in The People vs. Larry Flynt) to discuss the project. "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," says Protosevich. "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 show business."

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The casting process never officially went underway, but Schumacher reportedly had plans for adding another big-name character actor to the cast: Nicolas Cage. “It was going to be very dark," says Schumacher. "I remember going to the set of Face/Off and asking Nic Cage to play the Scarecrow ."Of course, Batman Unchained never got off the ground -- with neither Cage nor Love locked-in to star -- due to the financial and critical failure of Batman & Robin, which would delay the franchise until 2005's Batman Begins. It’s safe to say we got a pretty good trade-off.You can watch Harley Quinn next in Suicide Squad, coming to theatres August 5, 2016.

Anthony Couto is a writer for IGN. If you’d like to discuss the DC Multiverse or Star Trek, chat with him on Twitter at