Forum
Spark 2014 Conference, Film Festival and Job Fair
Where: Vancity Theatre, 1811 Seymour St.
When: Feb. 5-9. Michael Uslan speaks 7 p.m. Feb. 5
Tickets: $21.25 (members) $25 (non-menbers) for Uslan’s speech. More schedule and ticket information here.
As anticipation builds for the big-screen pair-up Superman Vs. Batman, fans have been groaning at casting news that Ben Affleck is to play Batman.
It’s a story that executive producer Michael Uslan has seen many times before, starting when actor Michael Keaton was cast in the title role for director Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman.
“At that moment the fans were coming at us with pitchforks and torches,” Uslan recalled. “It’s like Mr. Mom as Batman. Once they saw the picture it was, nobody else should play Batman. Now it’s the Ben Affleck uproar — it’s history repeating itself.”
Uslan, the keynote speaker at this year’s Spark visual effects conference and job fair, can take credit (or blame depending on your tastes) for the current big-screen flood of big-budget comic book movies.
Uslan started the wave when he bucked studio naysayers for 10 years to get Burton’s Batman made. Uslan has remained as executive producer for all the Batman movies since, including the most recent, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises.
Uslan’s connection with Batman began as a pre-teen comic book fan in the 1960s. The 13-year-old fan was in front of the TV for the 1966 debut of the Batman TV series, and was horrified to see his hero reduced to a campy figure of ridicule.
In the 1970s, he got a job writing Batman stories for DC comics while attending college.
“The dream I’d had since I was eight had come true, now I needed a new dream.”
Uslan asked DC comic president Sol Harrison to sell him the Batman movie rights, but Harrison remembered the disastrous TV series.
“He said ‘Michael for God’s sake don’t do this. I’d hate to see you lose your money,” Uslan said.
Uslan’s idea was to take the comic book character seriously. He got the rights in 1979, and after years of setbacks, a studio executive showed him the Tim Burton movie Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Uslan told Burton about his Batman idea over a couple of lunches, and the rest is movie history.
“I believe that every genre movie and TV show to this day has been so influenced by the vision of Tim Burton, by the work of (Batman production designer) Anton Furst and the music of Danny Elfman.”
Now, a half-dozen big-budget comic-based movies hit theatres every year.
“When I started out with these movies, people in Hollywood were not comic book fans. Now so many of our filmmakers and writers grew up with this material.”
Next up for Uslan, he’s working on a movie adaptation of the 1930s pulp novel series Doc Savage with Iron Man 3 writer-director Shane Black and Fast and Furious producer Neal Moritz.
As well, he still writes graphic novels and comics for DC and others. Uslan will give the keynote speech at the Spark conference, and will be signing copies of his autobiography The Boy Who Loved Batman.
