#the riddler and penguin would so humanize them in the bats' eyes which is probably a good thing? maybe? i mean the riddler is severely | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justgotham · 5 years

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On the eve of the show's farewell (and 100th episode), the duo open up about how the Warner Bros.-produced show came together, its biggest challenges, and how they succeeded despite "competing against 80 years of Batman history."

"Batman characters are like Beatles songs," philosophizes Danny Cannon, who has been a co-showrunner on Gotham (along with John Stephens and, until 2016, creator Bruno Heller) since Fox put it on the air in 2014. "You don't play them like the Beatles [did] — everybody does their own version of them."

His version — the one that follows Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) as a rookie cop and young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) as he learns to be Batman — will air its 100th episode, which will also be the series finale, on April 25. After five years of reinventing origin stories for villains like the Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor), the Riddler (Cory Michael Smith) and Catwoman (Camren Bicondova), and at its peak pulling in as many as 9.7 million viewers (as well as picking up a Creative Arts Emmy for visual effects), the Bat Signal is finally being switched off.

Stephens' future plans are unclear — for a time, he was developing a series about another city, Superman's hometown, Metropolis, for WarnerMedia's DC Universe streamer, but that project was scrapped. Cannon and Heller, though, will be staying near their old neighborhood with Pennyworth, an upcoming series they're shooting for Epix about Wayne Manor's trusty butler, Alfred (played on Gotham by Sean Pertwee and in the new series by Jack Bannon).

On the eve of Gotham's farewell, Cannon, 50, and Stephens, 47, sat with THR (their separate conversations are edited together here) to talk about how the Warner Bros.-produced show came together, its biggest challenges — like casting characters memorably played by the likes of Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer — and how they succeeded despite, as Stephens puts it, "competing against 80 years of Batman history."

You made Jim Gordon a centerpiece of the series. Why?

DANNY CANNON You see through the eyes of a new detective. He sees all the darkest stuff about the city. He looks into the corners and the alleyways of Gotham. Through all five seasons, Jim Gordon walks that thin line between the just and the corrupted. At any point, he could have left. There will always be corrupt people who attempt to control chaos in Gotham. Jim knew he was fighting the true nature of the city. That's good drama.

Batman's story has been told so many times in so many different ways. What version influenced you the most? Which the least?

JOHN STEPHENS I wish I could tell you that we had a really coherent point of view, but it was evolving. At the very beginning, it was a much more noir-inflected, boots-on-the-ground point of view of the city. Then it became more elevated as we continued on to the second season. There were flashes here and there where we probably went a little bit too far into some of the more supernatural elements that sometimes intrude into Gotham.

CANNON We called the show Gotham because that's what we wanted it to be about. We were basically asking, "What would have to happen to a city in order for someone like Batman to feel as though he was necessary?" You get to see all the darkness that Batman had to deal with. You look at him as a child and you get to see where all of his drive, his need to help the city came from. And I think that David did just an incredible job. We watched him grow up on the set. It was like watching Batman grow up.

STEPHENS The first time that Batman really impacted my psyche I was 13 or 14, when Frank Miller was working on the first run of the Dark Knight. Miller's Batman has a twofold element that we talked about bringing into the show. The first element was the sense of weakness and vulnerability Batman carried as an older man. We tried to inject some of that grave humanity, first into Bruce, then into the rest of the world. The second element of Batman that Miller captured really well was the joy he got from being Batman. We wanted to have that feeling of empowerment. I think those two things definitely played through.

Gotham is filled with such an iconic rogues' gallery. What was casting like?

CANNON Casting Gotham was the most fun I've ever had on a job. Those first few months before we started shooting, we had these characters on a board and basically said, "Here are 20 things we want to do this season. We can do five of them." I still think that the show evolved probably a little too fast. But it evolved naturally. And that's the way I wanted it to go.

What does it mean to you to hit 100 episodes … and how do you feel about ending the series?

STEPHENS You know, I'm not sure that reaching a hundred episodes means what it meant 10 or 15 years ago. But there is this weird sort of a milestone element to it for all of us that made it feel like we had run a marathon. Even though it would have been a huge chunk of our lives if the show only ran for four seasons, doing 100 episodes made it feel like we topped off that entire journey. I felt like I was pretty ready for a vacation at the end. We deserved it.

CANNON At the beginning of season five, it was determined that this would be our last. David was getting to that age [he's now 18] where he was turning into a man and we were heading into Batman territory. It's such an incredible fan base that stayed with us, and when the curtain closes, they'll have seen a 100-hour play. I hope that the world we created will remain in their consciousness. I know it's going to remain on Netflix.

And where would you like Gotham to fall in the long Batman pantheon?

STEPHENS I would hope that for this current generation, these iterations will be their canonical versions of the characters.

CANNON Gotham stands alone. There are many DC TV superhero shows. But Gotham had a specific feel. It was a different world. We wanted it to stand apart.

THAT TIME BRUCE WAYNE ALMOST KILLED ALFRED (AND OTHER CAST MEMORIES)

DAVID MAZOUZ (Bruce Wayne)

"I was standing on the top of a bar in a New York City nightclub with a bottle of alcohol-less champagne in each of my hands, surrounded by background actors who were 'OK with getting wet,' dancing my heart out to 'Thriller' and pouring bubbly all over my perfectly tailored Brooks Brothers suit. I looked around and thought, 'If being Bruce Wayne isn't the best thing that ever happened to me, I don't know what is.' "

CAMREN BICONDOVA (Catwoman)

"It feels like we've been on a five-year hike. And to see the work that we've all put in from the top of the mountain was a beautiful feeling."

SEAN PERTWEE (Alfred)

"My favorite memory would be asking Master Bruce to kill me. It shows Alfred's growth and his propensity to love so much as to be willing to die for Bruce, so that he may return from darkness."

BEN MCKENZIE (Jim Gordon)

"The best thing to come out of the series was meeting my wife," says McKenzie, who married Gotham actress Morena Baccarin in 2017.

ROBIN LORD TAYLOR (The Penguin)

"One of my favorite memories is when I learned that Carol Kane was playing my mother and then sharing a van ride home with her every night. She is a legend."

#Oswald Cobblepot #Robin Lord Taylor #Jim Gordon #James Gordon #Ben McKenzie #Leslie Thompkins #Morena Baccarin #Camren Bicondova #Selina Kyle #Bruce Wayne #David Mazouz #Alfred Pennyworth #Sean Pertwee

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hollywoodgothique · 5 years

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The Hollywood Museum is currently curating two exhibitions of intense interest to fans of horror movies and fantasy films: 30 Years of Make-Up, Monsters, and Magic focuses on the work of the Hollywood effects company Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. 20th Century Superhero Legends offers nostalgic memorabilia from movies and TV of the 1960s and 1970s. The A-side of this hit single is definitely the Amalgamated Dynamics display, but the legendary superheroes provide a solid flip-side. Together, they form a perfect sort of Yin and Yang, the darkly sinister horrors of the former balanced by the colorfully reassuring wonderment of the latter. In addition, the Hollywood Museum’s perennial Dungeon of Doom offers a value-added bonus for horror fans, with its collection of sets, props, costumes, and posters from frightful films and television shows.

Pictured at top: Tom Woodruff, Jr., Donelle Dadigan, Alec Gillis

The Hollywood Museum: Overview

In case you’re not familiar with The Hollywood Museum, it is located in the former Max Factor building on Highland Avenue in Hollywood, which also houses Mel’s Drive in (conveniently joined by a short corridor, so you can grab a burger after viewing the exhibits). Befitting the building’s legacy, the museum’s ground floor emphasizes Hollywood glamour (makeup and wardrobe), but there is also room for science-fiction and fantasy material – everything from Harry Potter to Vampira.

Currently, among the pink Christmas trees dotting the lobby, there is a display case housing the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz. Downstairs is the Dungeon. Upstairs are the special exhibits.

The Hollywood Museum: 30 Years of Makeup, Monsters & Magic

30 Years of Make-Up, Monsters, and Magic occupies the entire second floor gallery, which is filled with Aliens, Predators, Pennywise the Clown from IT, Annabelle the Doll from The Conjuring films, and mutants from X-Men: First Class, and Jakoby the Orc from the Netflix film Bright. Throbbing music pulses through the air, lending an aura of tension – you may feel as if you really have wandered into a dangerous den of monsters.

Most of the truly eye-catching pieces are encased in a glass display marked “Camera Ready,” indicating that these are finished works, good enough to withstand closeup scrutiny from the motion picture camera – or the human eye. This should not be underestimated: special effects are often built to survive the shoot and not much more; materials such as foam rubber are not very durable. Having these otherworldly creations in a form worthy of a gallery showing is remarkable, presenting them not as mere technical achievements or movie props but rather as artworks in their own right.

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The Alien and Predator figures are probably the most iconic ones on view, but for us the most impressive was the giant “bug” from Starship Toopers, looming large as life and separated from the public only by a velvet rope, like a movie star waiting for fans to come and take a selfie. Starship Troopers was an early example of using computer-generated imagery to depict large swarms of creatures, but this full-size creature reminds us that physical effects have a tactile verisimilitude difficult to duplicate in the virtual realm.

Other displays are less about aesthetic appreciation than education. Video clips illustrate work in progress and finished effects. Succinct descriptions explain the techniques used to create lifelike appearances from inanimate materials: painting glass eyes, punching hair in masks, painting foam rubber “skin” to simulate the translucent appearance of real flesh. Even knowledgeable laymen may learn a thing a two, such as that the process of make a life-cast (a mold duplicating an actor’s features) no longer relies on old-fashioned alginate but on more modern substances that dry faster, so that the subject no longer has to sit so long waiting for the muck encasing his face to dry and be cut off.

Make-Up, Monsters, and Magic celebrates the 30th anniversary of Amalgamated Dynamics, founded by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., whose credits stretch back to Tremors and include such titles as The Santa Claus, Spider-Man, Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Logan. The shared an Oscar for Best Visual Effects for Death Becomes Her. They executed the effects for Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, and the two Alien Vs. Predator films (a title card in the display case credits their work on the “Alien franchise,” coyly eliding the fact that they did not work on the first film, whose Alien was designed and created by the late Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger). They famously saw most of their work on the 2011 remake-prequel of The Thing replaced by CGI work, then turned lemons into lemonade by creating their own film, Harbinger Down (2013) to showcase the kind of physical effects that had been abandoned in the previous film. Their most recent release is The Predator, and the are currently working on several projects, including the upcoming Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

With a filmography this long, it is impossible for 30 Years of Make-Up, Monsters, and Magic to squeeze in everything; nevertheless, the exhibit does a fine job of hitting the highlights, featuring some of the company’s most spectacular and famous creations. As if all this were not enough, the exhibit includes examples of effects and makeup that inspired Amalgamated Dynamics, such as one of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion models from the classic fantasy film 7th Voyage of Sinbad. It’s a perfect opportunity to see classic and contemporary creatures rubbing shoulders. The exhibit will continue through December 15.

Photos from the opening night reception courtesy of the Hollywood Museum

The Hollywood Museum: 20th Century Superhero Legends

The third floor gallery houses several perennial exhibits (Harry Potter, etc), along with the new 20th Century Superhero Legends: Dedicated to Fight Evil, which opened on November 14. This is an expanded version of the Batman ’66 exhibit, which launched in January, featuring props, costumes, and figures from the campy 1960s television show. 20th Century Superhero Legends adds Wonder Woman and Superman to the mix, in the form of life-size figures of Linda Carter from the 1970s television show and of Christopher Reeve from the 1978 film Superman: The Movie, along with display cases of merchandise.

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The Batman ’66 exhibits are more elaborately detailed, offering the Batmobile and the Batcycle in a recreation of the Batcave and the “Bat Poles” that Dick and Bruce used to descend from the study in Wayne Manor to the Caped Crusader’s lair. There are costumed likenesses of Batman, Robin, Batgirl, along with a rogue’s gallery of their most famous adversaries: Catwoman, the Riddler, the Penguin, the Joker, and King Tut.

20th Century Superhero Legends is a fun trip down memory lane, to a bygone era when costumed crime-fighters were simple and even goofy – basically, naive comic characters brought to life in live-action with little concern for realism or troubling psychological overtones. Definitely a nice place to visit, even if only to provide a contrast with the current slate of hyper-charged big-screen superheroes. The exhibit runs through December 30.

The Hollywood Museum: The Dungeon

Descend to the Dungeon

No trip to the Hollywood Museum would be complete without descending into the Dungeon of Doom. Housed in the basement, this year-round exhibition features the prison set from Silence of the Lambs, including Hannibal Lecter’s cell, plus a collection of horror movie memorabilia titled “Monsters, Mummies, and Mayhem,” which includes miniature models of the original King Kong and life-sized figures Frankenstein, Vampira, Jason Voorhees, along with costumes, props, posters, and photographs.

There have been several additions and alterations since our last visit in 2014. You can no longer enter the padded cell down the hall from Lecter’s room. There are now costumes from The Walking Dead, Van Helsing, and Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A poster and props from The Scorpion King have been added to the Mummy display. A coffin from True Blood is on view. A guillotine from Quills (not really a horror film) holds a severed head. More withered bodies are stuffed in the small back room (where heard an audio track discussing the work of producer-director William Castle, known for his gimmicky horror films in the 1950s and 1960s).

One odd change was on the wall of photos depicting dozens of actors who played the roll of Dracula onscreen. Four years ago, we spotted a shot of Christopher Lee in Dracula, Prince of Darkness misidentified as Frank Langella in Dracula. Checking to see whether the mistake had been corrected, we saw the shot of Lee had been replaced – with a shot of him in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, still identified as Frank Langella in Dracula! At the front desk we were told that a correct photo was at the printer, soon to be delivered and put up on the wall.

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Photo mishap aside, the Dungeon offers a shadowy gallery of horrors in a setting perfectly suited to house them. The atmosphere is definitely that of haunted house attraction; though there are neither actors nor jump-scares, you may suffer a shiver or two while perusing the cadaverous figures lurking in the darkness. The recent additions keep the exhibit up to date with current trends while not eclipsing the classic horror icons. The result is a bit like a miniature history of horror, with monsters from different decades comfortably rubbing shoulders, The Scorpion King side by side with Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb. It may be a nightmare for some but definitely a dream come true for others.

The Hollywood Museum: Conclusion

Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera

All three of the above exhibits are available for a single price of admission during regular business hours. 30 Years of Make-Up, Monsters, and Magic is definitely the star attraction, but 20th Century Superhero Legends: Fight Against Evil has its own campy charm. The Dungeon – with its Monsters, Mummies, and Mayhem – is worth a visit entirely on its own. When there are two great exhibits upstairs, there is no justification for a self-respecting horror fan not to attend.

Afterward, take advantage of the convenient corridor linking the Hollywood Museum to Mel’s Drive In. Along the way, you will pass a figure of Lon Chaney in his guise as the title character in the 1925 silent black-and-white version of The Phantom of the Opera. In one of those interesting juxtapositions that characterizes the Hollywood Museum’s display, Chaney’s Phantom is standing over a poster for the 1943 color remake starring Claude Rains, reminding us that the horror genre eternally renews itself, resurrecting old characters in new forms for successive generations. The presence of up-to-date work by Amalgamated Dynamics, while horror from decades past lurks in the Dungeon, is the Museum’s most recent manifestation of this lesson.

Review: Makeup, Monsters & Superheroes at Hollywood Museum The Hollywood Museum is currently curating two exhibitions of intense interest to fans of horror movies and fantasy films:

#Amalgamated Dynamics #Hollywood Museum Archive #Props and Memorabilia #Superhero Movies

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