Hollywood is paved with broken dreams and rejection. So when the hashtag #ShareYourRejection bubbled up yesterday, it was unsurprisingly a gold mine of fascinating projects that never came to fruition and Hollywood executives making boneheaded decisions. One of the more intriguing rejections that was shared came from screenwriterJohn August, who broke out with the 1999 filmGoand whose credits range fromBig FishtoThe Nines. He’s also the co-host of the excellent Scriptnotes podcast alongsideCraig Mazin, which is a podcast devoted to the art of screenwriting.
BeforeGohit theaters in 1999, August revealed that he actually pitched aCatwomanmovie to Warner Bros. The studio had been actively developing a spinoff starringMichelle PfeifferafterBatman Returns, withTim Burtonoriginally attached to direct from a screenplay byDaniel Waters, who pennedReturns. But Waters turned in hisCatwomanscreenplay around the same timeBatman Foreverwas released, which recontexualized this franchise as something far more family (and product-) friendly. Needless to say, Burton and Waters subsequently dropped out.
But the project was still something WB wanted to make, so August pitched his own take on aCatwomanmovie starring Pfeiffer. In the pages below, you can see that the film opens on Halloween night, but then finds Selena Kyle falling off a building and losing her powers/identity. Not only that, but her comatose body is moved to Chicago, where we encounter her parents and two sisters.
This sounds like a mighty intriguing take on a fascinating character, and it’s unfortunate it never saw the light of day. Warner Bros. would eventually attachAshley Juddto star, and even offered the part toBatman ForeverstarNicole Kidman, before eventually forging ahead with aHalle Berry-led version directed by French filmmakerPitof. To say that film killed any idea of aCatwomanfranchise for years to come would be an understatement.
The character remains ripe for adaptation (Anne Hathaway’s portrayal inDark Knight Risesremains excellent), and with Warner Bros. now developing aBatgirlmovie, aSupergirlmovie, as well as a female-centricBirds of Preyfilm, it feels likeCatwomanis still a viable option at some point. Alas, August’s story is a great reminder of how hard it is to get movies made, even when your ideas are exciting.
