Joel Schumacher, the director of two Batman and Lost Generation , died of cancer at the age of 80, those responsible for his communication with AFP said on Monday. The one who had started his career as a costume designer, before becoming a big name in Hollywood, died "peacefully" in New York "after a year-long fight against cancer," they said in a press release.
Joel Schumacher is best known for Batman Forever (1995) and Batman and Robin (1997), films that had split. For this lucrative franchise, he took over from Tim Burton, and his first Batman , with Val Kilmer, had success at the box office. But the two films had been criticized both by many critics and by fans, who had inter alia taken umbrage of the nipples added to the costume of Batman.
In an interview in 2017, Schumacher told Vice that he wanted to "apologize to all fans disappointed" with "Batman and Robin", adding that he felt like he had "killed a baby". The franchise was then reinvigorated by Christopher Nolan in 2005 with Batman Begins .
Beginnings as a costumer
Schumacher had started as a costume designer in the 1970s, on films like Woody and the Robots (1973). St Elmo's Fire (1985) was Schumacher's first success as a director. Followed Lost Generation (1987) and Forbidden Experience (1990), before he embarked on the Batman for Warner Bros.
Schumacher is credited with helping to launch careers like those of Matthew McConaughey and Colin Farrell.