Oh, it’s true. The bat and the bird almost flew together in the first film of the shadowy film series.
Batman Forever, released in 1995, featured the first appearance of Robin in the Warner Bros. Batman film series. Robin was originally a part of Batman Returns – the previous film and the second overall – but was scrapped for various reasons. However, the character was also originally intended to have an appearance in the first film in the series.
The script for what would become the enormously successful Batman from 1989, starring Michael Keaton in the lead role, called for one unique Robin scene as a way to introduce the character to the series.
In the Shadows of the Bat documentary series, which explores the making of the batty movies, it’s explained that why the scene was cut out.
Director Tim Burton noted that when they realized that the scene wouldn’t work, that no one objected to cutting it out since Robin was not an important character in the film.
Sam Hamm, screenwriter on the movie, said, “We had some huge structural challenges that we had to work out. Originally Robin was supposed to be in it and the structure that we had worked out for the story really did not admit Robin very easily.”
Michael E. Uslan, executive producer on the film, noted, “There’s also a historical reason why Robin shouldn’t even be in the first picture and that’s because the first year that Batman was in the comics, he worked solo.”
So what was this scene supposed to be?
It stayed true to the origins of the character, with Dick Grayson and his family performing as trapeze artists and his parents being murdered. In the comics, and also in Batman: The Animated Series, the guy that’s responsible for killing them is a mobster named Tony Zucco, not to be confused with Danny Zuko of the T-birds (a different kind of bird) at Rydell High, though I personally wouldn’t mind a Greased Lightning vs Batmobile showdown.
The movie (Batman, that is, not Grease) actually also has Robin’s parents murdered, but sort of in sort of an unintentional way and not by a mobster. Instead, it’s the Joker who is the guilty party.
It happens when the Joker is chasing Batman through Gotham’s streets and into a closed-off area where the Graysons are giving a special performance. The Joker, who is driving a van, speeds towards Batman, who is riding a horse (don’t ask, though Greased Lightning would burn that stallion), whereupon the Crown Prince of crime notices boxes of fireworks ahead. He targets the fireworks and manages to set them off, which knocks Batman off of his horse and also simultaneously knocks Robin’s parents off of the tightrope they were walking, which is a few stories off the ground. As a result, they fall to their death.
Robin then jumps onto the Joker’s van to seek immediate revenge. The Joker shoots at him, but Robin is knocked off the van and ends up in Batman’s company as the Joker gets away.
Had this scene been included, it would have likely overloaded the film with too many origins-with-a-twist, from the Joker being created because of Batman, to Batman being created because of Joker killing his parents, plus Robin being created also because of Joker killing his parents. It’s just too much.
Robin would’ve made a great wingman for Batman during the first movie, but given the sheer level of parent-killing overload here, it seems the filmmakers made the right early decision by having Batman wing it alone.