Remembering Batman: Dead End – 19 Years Later
Before Christopher Nolan came along and made a great trilogy of Batman films that shook the very foundation of comic book movies, Batman: Dead End had already been there. Full of iconic characters, visual cues, and costumes straight out of an Alex Ross painting, B:DE filled its 8 minute runtime with enough Batman badassery that the lucky few who saw it during the 2003 San Diego Comic Con needed to have their jaws wired back to their skulls. The era of Short films hadn’t begun yet, but director Sandy Collora was already ‘shooting his shot’ at the big-time and going all in on himself and his vision.
San Diego Comic Con is something of a masterpiece. Thousands of people flood the area in a shared love of comics, movies, and hot girls in cosplay. Somewhere amongst the chaos of dozens of films, new trailers, and hundreds of events and appearances, Sandy Collora’s short film titled Batman: Dead End opened The Masquerade event to a packed house. As the line stretched out the door and with the Fire Marshall screaming in their ears about the room capacity, they decided to close the doors and run a second showing of the film for those outside. What had begun as a dream for a director and his love of design and effects, had merged with his childhood love of superheroes and, in particular, The Dark Knight. What the fans in attendance didn’t know, however, was just how different this short film almost was.
Early in the pre-production process for what would eventually become Batman: Dead End, Sandy Collora had somehow met with action legend Sylvester Stallone about playing the role of Batman. As insane as that sounds now, it’s even more ridiculous when you think that he also was in discussions with Mark Hamill about playing The Joker. Think about the amount of cleanup that would require at SDCC after all of the exploding heads from fanboys. This was before the internet had spoiled pretty much any and all secrets when it came to trailers and films so this could have been the biggest reveal in cinema history. But, as we all know it didn’t come to fruition and once Sly had to back out they lost in interest of Hamill.
Many of the shots we see in the finished product of Batman: Dead End range from what I consider “happy accidents” to downright miracles. Collora and his team had meticulously stage and designed everything to the very last detail but it wasn’t until they started to see the characters in the costumes under the dark lighting that they started to think it was going to be something special. How many short films can boast this level of exposure and even say that they had action figures produced because of them?
Sandy was offered several different opportunities after the release of Dead End but he didn’t think he could conform to what the studios wanted. He chose, instead, to stay true to himself and not take on projects that he didn’t feel creative or passionate about. While that has certainly caused his career as a director to stall, praise from comic book legends Alex Ross and Kevin Smith for his work on Batman: Dead End are probably things that help him to sleep at night. Ross called B: DE “Batman the way I’ve always wanted to see him”. Smith said it was “possibly the truest, best Batman movie ever made”. What more can be said for a project whose final product is barely 8 minutes. 8 minutes of pure joy!
