Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is only weeks away, and yet we haven’t heard much lately from Frank Miller, whose Dark Knight Returns provided the core inspiration for the movie. That’s hardly shocking — 2016 Frank Miller is a sharply divisive figure liable to say all sorts that would give the Warner Bros. PR department a collective heart attack. Most people are happy to pretend the idea of Batman fighting Superman in a Bat-mech just appeared out of thin air.
Well, the Hollywood Reporter summoned up the guts to talk to Miller, and as usual the legendary comics creator and full-time crank had plenty to say. Perhaps most notably, Miller says he hasn’t been paid for Elektra being a major character on the new season of Daredevil. But he’s okay with that?
“No [I haven’t been paid]. I don’t know if they quite know I exist. Let’s see if they credit me for creating Elektra. I don’t want to be one of those cranky old guys grinding an ax, wishing I got paid better. I’ve done my best to pave the way for artists in the future to be treated better than I have. And that’s all I can do. Beyond that, I’d be pissing and moaning about things I have no control over. I’ve signed every contract that I’ve signed and agreed to the working conditions that I’ve worked in. And I’m not going to whine about this. I make a good living.”
Miller also gave some insight into the Batman: Year One movie he was working on with Darren Aronofsky back in the early 2000s. According to Miller, Aronofsky actually though Miller’s Batman was just too goddamn nice:
“It was the first time I worked on a Batman project with somebody whose vision of Batman was darker than mine. My Batman was too nice for him. We would argue about it, and I’d say, “Batman wouldn’t do that, he wouldn’t torture anybody,” and so on. We hashed out a screenplay, and we were wonderfully compensated, but then Warner Bros. read it and said, ‘We don’t want to make this movie.’ The executive wanted to do a Batman he could take his kids to. And this wasn’t that. It didn’t have the toys in it. The Batmobile was just a tricked-out car. And Batman turned his back on his fortune to live a street life so he could know what people were going through.”
There are tons of other goodies to be found in the Hollywood Reporter‘s interview, including Miller’s thoughts on the presidential campaign, whether Batman is a fascist and how he’d handle his infamous flop The Spirit differently. I suggest you check the full interview out, below.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
