About the Movie
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Acknowledgement
This is shown at the start of the movie:
"We wish to express our gratitude to the enemies of crime and crusaders
against crime throughout the world for their inspirational example. To them
and to lovers of adventure, lovers of pure excapism, lovers of the unadulterated
entertainment, lovers of the ridiculous and bizarre... to the fun lovers
everywhere this picture is respectfully dedicated.
If we have overlooked any sizable group lovers, we apologize." -The
Producer's
History
The original idea was that the movie should be released before the television series, so that the movie would promote the series thus gaining viewers. As you all know, this did not happen. Purely because ABC's viewing figures in 1965 were terrible and they were desperate for something fresh and succesful fast, which put the film onto the backburner. After the huge success of Batman's first season production of the movie was pushed back up high on the agenda. Now the movie intended to gain oversea's viewers to promote the TV series, as other than the United States the movie was shown before the TV series. Also the large movie budget allowed the production of new Bat-Vehicles; the Bat-Boat and Bat-Copter.
The Movie had an even great success in the UK as batfans got to see Batman in colour for the first time, this was because colour televisions weren't introduced in the UK until 1969. The only specifications Fox demanded from William Dozier were to use all four major villains and to have Lorenzo Semple Jr. (who wrote the majority of first season episodes) to write the script/story for the Movie. This in itself has made a huge impact on the whole Batman history as before 1966 Batman the Riddler was not reguarded as a "major" villain, appearing only a handful of times within the comic books. Also the Catwoman had been missing from the comics for several years as it was felt unacceptable to show women with "over-exaggerated" features appearing in roles such as criminals in American media. DC Comics actually had idea's to turn Catwoman into a hero because of this. However, thankfully the 1966 Movie and series combined alowed for the return of Catwoman. Since the 1966 Movie both Catwoman and Riddler have appeared in the comics numerous times aswell as the Batman Animated Series and the latest movies.
The estimated cost of the Movie is $1,400,000. Considering Fox was low on money during this period, the budget was very generous showing that they had alot of faith for Batman. It was filmed with a 26 day shooting schedule. If you notice alot of the storyline revolves around the Penguin, its his submarine, his dockyard hideout, his henchmen. The Penguin was the sort of leader within the gang of four criminals, which isn't surprising as Burgess Meredith's Penguin was the favourite guets villain amoungst the script writers.
