The Batmobile Page #4

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There's the gas, front brakes, rear brakes.

I got going down the street at about 40

and then hit the brakes.

It almost got all the way around.

And it didn't make it,

it just hit the chain link.

FLATTERY:

That wing was so long it just:

[MAKES WHIRRING SOUND]

It made a hellacious noise.

It was composite.

So anywhere up and down the street

you could hear that thing.

FLATTERY:
I just wadded the whole wing up

and took off 2 feet of it.

I was not everyone's favorite person

in the shop that day...

...because it was a scramble to get it fixed.

Whoo! Ha-ha-ha!

I remember when any of my friends

brought their children...

...or my godchildren to the set...

...and I would let them sit in it,

they just freaked out.

And then the big boys liked it too.

I mean, everybody wanted to sit in it

and have their picture taken.

It was fun.

The Batmobile, to me, signifies "sexy."

You get behind the wheel of a Batmobile,

you're ready to fight some crime.

I think the Batmobile is important

because it's a symbol.

Worst car ever!

I want a car. Chicks dig the car.

In Batman & Robin,

I said I'd love to make this twice as big.

It was a totally new design. This was gonna

be very long, inspired by the '30s...

...where the car just seems to come at you

forever and ever.

I've never made a longer fender in my life,

to this day.

BELKER:
And then in the script,

it was written that it was a single-seater...

...open this time, for the first time.

A quarter-scale model is done

so you can work relatively fast and quick...

...to get the shape all worked out.

That data is picked by a computer...

...so that surface will translate

into a 3D form.

It was really the early 3D days

of working like that.

Originally it had no fins.

We presented it to Joel.

He just thought it needed

two giant, bat-inspired wings in the back.

And it gets milled in full size.

And the chassis and everything

was all done parallel.

We did vehicle testing at Whiteman Airport.

We wanted to make sure

that the chassis ran fine.

We did burnouts, everything it had to do.

That was fun. And it worked.

The burners, that was kind of

an extensive development...

...because we were trying to get

the smaller burners out the tail.

There was no preexisting flame source.

We tried everything.

Hacking on leaf burners, everything else.

We actually had to end up

building those from scratch.

So we had a propane flame

and the injection pump...

...with metal in solution, metal salts,

so we could change the color of the flame.

And it was so expensive.

I think that's why they did just one.

ZURIAN:
They took the gamble of doing

everything with one car, which is--It's a risk.

So I didn't have to do any crazy stunts.

All of that was done in miniatures or in CG.

When the thing jumps around

or drove along the arm...

...that's a CG model, not a real model.

DILLIN:
The car has so many batteries

with all the neon that we run on it.

Up in here in the side panels, they're LEDs.

We found this guy

who had developed this luminous paper.

LING:

We had gotten these backlit panels...

...which are now kind of standard

in all cars almost...

...of this cobalt blue lighting.

You could see the rocket inside of its mouth,

so to speak.

And you also wanted it to look a little

like it's the bat logo...

...but it could also be fangs.

The wing had enough length to it...

...you could actually see that it's almost like

it was a flying bat at the moment.

And it had this incredible silhouette.

ZURIAN:
No conventional production tires

would fit that car.

The tires we used were basically a prototype

that the manufacturer creates...

...oversized, for this car company,

they're used for development.

And since they come without tread,

it was an opportunity to cut tread.

So I thought, let's try another bat logo.

It was cool. As the car would roll,

it would leave a trail of bats behind it.

You could always tell where the car was

if you followed the bats.

You look at the interpretation of Batman

in film and TV over the years...

...and see how different they are.

Same thing in animation, same thing in comics.

I worked on Batman: The Animated Series...

...but it was the revamp of Batman

that I had a little bit more input on.

The biggest thing was trying to make

the Batmobile animatable...

...but sleek, dark, and fit into the style

that we were going for for Batman.

And then the Batman Beyond Batmobile,

we were just trying to make it just really weird.

We were trying to make sort of a flying car.

Because it was the future,

we didn't have to worry about it having wheels.

It didn't have to function like a real car.

It was kind of a cross between

a jet and a race car.

In the story line of "Batman: Hush"...

...you get a glimpse of a hall

in the Batcave...

...that we had never seen before,

which has all the old Batmobiles.

DIDIO:
You looked at different interpretations

of the Batmobiles.

It really did capture particular eras in time.

And therefore validated almost every story

that was ever told for Batman.

USLAN:
In Batman: The Cult there was

a monster-truck version of the Batmobile...

...that's kind of utterly bizarre.

So there have been great variations

on a theme over the years.

If Batman's going to be effective

as a crime fighter in a city...

...he must have a vehicle

that will be an effective weapon.

WHITE:

One of Batman's main tools is his car.

And I think that really fits

into our American romance with the car...

...and the idea that, "Wow, if I had a Batmobile,

I could do anything."

- Nice car.

- You should see my other one.

I would just watch my back

if I saw that coming.

The Tumbler? It's just...

It represents, I guess, vengeance, justice.

You know, like, if that's coming

and you're doing something wrong...

...it's over for you.

I liked how the Tumbler would actually...

...when it was on top of the building,

would have that boost and jump.

DIDIO:
You've got fans who were kids

now becoming the artists.

And what they're doing is they're reinterpreting

the Batmobile in a way that they wanna see it.

NOLAN:
If you took onboard the idea

that you were going to have to design...

...this icon you grew up with,

I think you'd be paralyzed in a creative sense.

We actually very much addressed it

from a story point of view.

Like, okay, we have to have this vehicle.

It has to be able to do certain things

in the story.

And we have to have a credible design to it.

And an explanation, visually,

of where it's come from.

What's that?

FOX:

Oh, the Tumbler?

Oh, you wouldn't be interested in that.

[ENGINE REVVING]

NOLAN:

I had this idea of really having something...

...that had the profile of a Lamborghini...

...but was combined with the weight and feel

of, like, a Humvee.

It's not built with the trappings of,

quote-unquote, "previous Batmobiles."

It doesn't have the bat symbols,

it doesn't take on any fins.

Our approach was to try and build something

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