Joel Schumacher's ‘Batman Forever’ 170 Minute Cut Exists and Kevin Smith Has Seen It

There are definitely fans out there of Joel Schumacher’s “Batman Forever.” I remember not really being thrilled by it, but it might have been a purely biased reaction on my part given that I was a big fan of the Keaton/Burton films.

Regardless, a super-sized version of “Batman Forever” reportedly exists in the form of a nearly three-hour director's cut. Now Kevin Smith is saying that he has received a copy of the Schumacher Cut and he’s going to talk about it on June 19th.

It was writer and podcaster Marc Bernardin who first reported about the 170-minute cut of the movie existing. Bernardin’s intel suggested that Warner Bros. never made a move toward releasing it because they weren't sure whether there was a market for a longer, darker version.

Bernardin elaborated …

"I think that [the 170 minute cersion] went much deeper into his childhood psychosis and his mental blocks and that it was a more serious, darker version of that movie that was one of the first assemblies that Joel filed with the studio and they eventually cut it down because they were like 'it's too dark for kids. We gotta sell these Happy Meals, so maybe let's not invest ourselves in the trauma of childhood murder. We've got Jim Carrey, let him do some s--t."

This of course led to a social media hashtag with the name #ReleaseTheSchumacherCut. How predictable.

The film starred Val Kilmer as Batman while Chris O'Donnell played Robin, Jim Carrey was The Riddler, and Tommy Lee Jones was Two-Face. It was a neon-technicolor film deeply ingrained in the camp and spirit of the '60s TV show.

Contrast that with Burton’s 1989 and 1992 films, which went went into the darker depths of the character, no doubt paving the way for Nolan’s iteration of the Caped Crusader in his Dark Knight trilogy.

Schumacher died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 80. He was castigated for these Batman movies, especially the much mocked “Batman & Robin,” which definitely didn’t have the fanbase of ‘Forever.’