ABSTRACT
McDonalds and Wal-Mart Toys are a big business. Toys based on superheroes are a bigger business. Toys based on superheroes appearing in massively profitable films are a massively bigger business. And so the toy companies helped destroy the Batman film series in the 1990s, after Burton’s Batman sequel, Batman Returns (1992), proved too dark for the kiddies (though those rocket-launching penguins were awesome). Joel Schumacher came in and turned the Batman series back 30 years, bringing in the pastiche and bright colors of the West series, adding nipples to the costumes, and causing the series to fade into obscurity for seven years starting in 1997.
