He is BATMAN

THAILAND’S FILM BUFFS are in for a treat this weekend as Hollywood comes to town for the inaugural Bangkok Comic-Con. There’ll be exclusive screenings, sneak peeks, panel discussions, and displays of collectibles and toys, but the best reason for going is surely to celebrate the birthday of superhero, who turns 75 this year, and enjoy an exhibition that includes a full-size Batmobile, a Batman hologram and many exciting activities.
Few are more intimate with the hero of the night better than Michael Uslan, the producer who kick-started the Batman movie franchise back in the ’80s. We drew him away from the Caped Crusader and asked him how it all started.

HOW BIG OF A COMIC FAN ARE YOU?
I had 30,000 comic books by the time I finished high school and my collection went back to the year 1936, which was pretty well the start of the comic book industry. More recently, I donated 45,000 comic books from my collection to Indiana University’s rare book library – the Lily Library – but I also kept .several thousand of my favourites, which I’m saving for my son. I’m not someone who buys comic books as an investment. I love them and have read every one 100 times at least. I keep them in acid free-bags.

YOU ALSO DESIGNED A COURSE ON COMIC BOOK FOLKLORE.
I did. I taught the very first accredited college course on comic books ever. It was on how to appreciate comic books. Because when I was growing up, society looked down upon comic books. They thought that they were nothing more than cheap entertainment for little children. And I wanted to bring to the attention first to America and then to the world that this is a legitimate art form. It’s as indigenous to America as jazz and the artwork is worthy of exhibition in galleries and museums. That’s been proved over the years through comic book shows at the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

WHY DO YOU LIKE BATMAN SO MUCH?
When I was eight years old I became so mature and sophisticated that I was able to graduate to Superman and Batman comics! I immediately fell in love with this character. He was a superhero who had no superpowers and I could really identify with that. I contend to this day that Batman’s superpower is his humanity. He had the greatest super villains in the history of comic books – The Joker, Cat Woman, Penguin, The Riddler – and as Stan Lee, co-creator of the Marvel superheroes, always said, “The most popular, the most long-lasting superheroes have always been the ones who have the greatest super villains. Another aspect of Batman that really appealed to me was the car. James Bond took a lesson from Batman and learned that he must have a really, really cool car. And I loved Batman’s original story. As a child he saw his parents murdered before him and he vowed at that moment that he would get the bad guys who did this and he spend the rest of his life living up to that vow.

WHAT SPARKED THE IDEA OF MAKING A BATMAN MOVIE?
The 1960s television series, without a doubt. I remember being upset that the TV Batman was treated as a joke. And I made my own little Bruce Wayne vow right there and then: that someday, I would find a way to show the world who the true Batman is, the way he was created in 1939 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger as a creature of the night who stalks criminals in the shadows. And that’s what I set out to do.

OBVIOUSLY BATMAN IS A BIG HIT NOW. BUT WHY WAS IT SO DIFFICULT BACK THEN?
When I acquired the rights to Batman in 1979, I was in my 20s. I was able to get them simply because nobody else was interested in Batman. The people who were running Hollywood in the ’70s couldn’t see how you could take an old comic book and turn it into a blockbuster movie, unless it was Superman. They thought I was absolutely crazy to want to do a dark and serious comic book superhero. It took me and my partner, Benjamin Melniker, 10 years to get the first movie made. Thanks to the genius of our director Tim Burton, the movie came to be and my dream finally came true.

WAS IT DIFFICULT TO PICK THE RIGHT ACTOR FOR THE ROLE?
Tim Burton picked the cast. When I heard that Michael Keaton – a comedian – has been hired to play Batman for the 1989 movie, I was apoplectic, shouting at Tim that it would be the end of the dark and serious Batman. Tim explained that in order to make the first serious superhero movie from a comic book, the focus had to be on Bruce Wayne. We had to convince audiences that Bruce Wayne was so driven, psychotic perhaps, that he would put on a cape and mask and go out as a bat. He thought that casting a serious actor in the part might cause unintentional laughs. He was right. If you look at all the movies over the years, each actor’s interpretation of the Batman is not all that different. But the interpretations of Bruce Wayne are completely different. You had Keaton as the obsessed, neurotic Bruce Wayne, Val Kilmer as the very dark and romantic, George Clooney was the warm and fuzzy boy next door, and then Christian Bale, who I think really nailed it for every generation of Batman fans. Coming soon is Ben Affleck. I think he will be absolutely sensational.

WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN IN “BATMAN VS SUPERMAN”?
You know Batman and Superman have been meeting in the comic books since the 1940s. Fans always ask which of the two would win if they got into a fight who would win, And 90 per cent of them automatically come down on the side of Superman. I point out to them that Batman has the brains and in our world, brains will always triumph over brawn. These two heroes have been friends for 70 years but they represent two different sides of the superhero coin. Superman was the first superhero ever created. He has superpower from another planet and a lot of people refer to him as the great Boy Scout. Batman comes from darkness and he’s human; he is not super powered. So the contrast between the two is always entertaining and mystifying. You never know what’s going to happen next.

TO THE BATMOBILE
Bangkok Comic-Con runs until Sunday at Royal Paragon Hall, Siam Paragon.
Entry is Bt150. For more details, check www.BangkokComicCon.com.