From 'Batman Forever' to 'Phone Booth': Joel Schumacher's career in films

American filmmaker Joel Schumacher, best known for directing the Batman film series in the 1990s, has died at the age of 80. Schumacher passed away after a battle with cancer on June 22 in New York City.

Schumacher’s upward trajectory as a filmmaker wasn’t immediately successful. His first feature film as a director, 1981’s ‘The Incredible Shrinking Woman’ starring Lily Tomlin, was met with mostly negative reviews from critics despite a sprinkling of praise here and there.

However, things started to look up for Schumacher with the ‘Brat Pack’ films — a term that refers to a group of young actors who frequently worked together, and a label that Schumacher resented. Nonetheless, Schumacher became a seminal voice of the 1980s thanks to those Brat Pack films: ‘St Elmo’s Fire’ (1985), starring Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe and Demi Moore, and ‘The Lost Boys’ (1987), featuring Kiefer Sutherland and Corey Haim. The two movies were among Schumacher’s career highlights — the stylistic choices that Schumacher made, influenced by his background in the fashion industry as a window dresser, went a long way in getting the attention and trust of studios.

In the early 1990s, Schumacher directed two John Grisham adaptations — ‘The Client’ (1994), a legal thriller starring Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones, and ‘A Time to Kill’ (1996); Grisham personally asked for Schumacher to return behind the lens of ‘A Time to Kill’, a courtroom crime drama that starred Sandra Bullock, Samuel L Jackson and Matthew McConaughey. It was both a critical and commercial hit, more than tripling its budget at the box office.

In 1995, Tim Burton was meant to return to the Batman franchise to direct more films. But some Warner Brother executives took issue with Burton’s dark approach. Schumacher replaced Burton and ‘Batman Forever’ was born, starring Val Kilmer instead of Michael Keaton as Batman. The film received mixed reviews but smashed the box office and had the highest grossing opening weekend of 1995. It was the second-highest grossing film that year in North America.

But Schumacher’s ‘Batman’ success was short-run. His second (and only other) Batman movie, ‘Batman & Robin’, took a beating from critics. The film didn’t make an impression on the box office and was considered to be one of the worst films ever made in Hollywood, which caused Warner Bros to put the Batman series on hold for years. They also axed Schumacher’s next planned film, ‘Batman Unchained’. Schumacher had apologised to fans who were disappointed by his more family friendly approach, which he said he was pressured into by the studio.

After his Grisham adaptations and ‘Batman & Robin’ in the 1990s, Schumacher decided to turn a page in his career. He put out heavier crime films with less studio funding, such as ‘8mm’ starring Nicholas Cage and ‘Flawless’ starring Robert De Niro.

He released more the commercial titles ‘Bad Company’ and ‘Phone Booth’ in 2002. ‘Phone Booth’, a single location thriller starring Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland and Forest Whitaker, famously completed principal photography in only 10 days, plus two days of re-shoots. Schumacher and his cast adopted a ‘French hours’ technique of work, in which actors and crew eat throughout the day instead of shutting down the production for a lunch break.

In 2004, Schumacher put out a cinematic adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage production ‘Phantom of the Opera’. It met with mixed reviews, but was nominated for three Academy Awards and three Golden Globes.

Schumacher continued to direct films until 2011. He directed two episodes of the hit TV series ‘House of Cards’ in 2013, partially due to his friendship with producer David Fincher.

Schumacher was known for casting up-and-coming talent and helping their careers flourish, including Farrell and McConaughey.