Tim Burton's Batman Returns Controversy Gas Been Explained

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The holiday season may be over, but there are many great Christmas movies that can still be enjoyed year-round, such as Batman Returns. Of course, Michael Keaton's second outing as The Dark Knight is not everybody's cup of tea.

When speaking to Adam Lupis for The Up & Adam Show, composer Danny Elfman recalled the uphill battle that director Tim Burton faced for his second DC Comics adaptation. Before it was even released, Batman Returns was deemed inappropriate for younger audiences.

When Batman Returns was coming out, the Censor Bureau, they refused to give it a general rating. They said it was too scary for kids... When [Burton] tried to say, 'What specifically do you want us to cut?' as I recall, their answer was, 'It's not specific. It's the general tone. You can't change that.' And there was this huge battle over it, which was absolute bulls---.

The controversy surrounding the superhero movie — taking place around the holiday season in Gotham City — only worsened after it was released, with a PG-13 rating, in 1992. Most famously, McDonald's regretted its Batman Returns tie-in deal, agreeing that the film's dark content was not what the fast food chain typically looks to for inspiration when coming up with Happy Meal toys.

Faith Daniels, host of the daytime talk show A Closer Look, also dedicated an entire segment to discussing parents' upsetting reactions to Batman Returns. She even invited 10-year-old USA Today movie critic Danny Slaski, who described the film as "a total attack against kids," but also recalled having no trouble getting through the R-rated Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The unfavorable returns that Batman Returns was met with are considered to blame for its worldwide box office earnings of $266.9 million, which were seen as a disappointment in comparison to the $411.6 million that Batman made in 1989. Furthermore, it led Warner Bros. to opt for a dramatic tonal shift for the franchise, resulting in Joel Schumacher's far lighter Batman Forever in 1995 and 1997's Batman & Robin, which kept the Caped Crusader off the big screen for years.

By today's standards, the sequel to Burton's Batman is quite tame and fun, but it is not too hard to understand why Batman Returns was considered terrifying in 1992. For one, Danny DeVito plays, just about, the most nightmarish depiction of The Penguin ever put to screen, and Catwoman, whom Sean Young infamously vied to play before Michelle Pfeiffer was cast, is highly sexualized, which is not nearly as concerning as her erratic behavior post-transformation.

That being said, Elfman makes a great point when mentioning that much of the comic book movie's violence is "no different than an old Western."

Danny Elfman Experienced Premature Backlash For Another Tim Burton Holiday Favorite

Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas

The icy reception to Batman Returns would not mark the last time that Elfman encountered controversy related to a film he worked on with Burton, and with a holiday theme, too. Said feature was none other than The Nightmare Before Christmas, in which a resident of a Halloween-obsessed world discovers a new holiday and becomes inspired.

Later in his interview for The Up & Adam Show, Elfman recalled that, like the DC movie, the 1993 stop-motion animated film was deemed too frightening for children before its release. The Nightmare Before Christmas even fell victim to misinformed rumblings by the press, which the musician experienced firsthand.

I did a press junket in Orlanda, Florida... and every single journalist said, 'So the movie is too scary for kids, right?' I said, 'No.'.... And they'd say stuff like, 'But I hear Santa gets tortured.' I go, 'Santa Claus does not get tortured. He gets inconvenienced.'

Here, Elfman refers to when Old St. Nick is kidnapped and forced to confront Oogie-Boogie, after Lock, Shock, and Barrel misunderstood Jack Skellington's request, as part of his plans to take over duties for Christmas. The former Oingo Boingo frontman, in addition to composing the Golden Globe-nominated score for The Nightmare Before Christmas, does all the singing for The Pumpkin of Halloween, who is also voiced by Chris Sarandon.

The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is directed by Henry Sellick and based on a story by Burton, was distributed to theaters by Disney under its Touchstone Pictures banner, which was typically saved for more "mature" releases. Despite initial hesitation from the powers that be for its decidedly macabre stylings, the film was a hit with critics and a sleeper success commercially that, much like Batman Returns, is now honored as a beloved, if not unconventional, holiday tradition by millions.

Batman Returns is streaming on HBO Max and Paramount+.