Michelle Pfeiffer says a standalone “Catwoman” movie was almost made in the ’90s following her memorable take as the femme fatale feline in “Batman Returns,” and had she been asked to reprise her role, she would have done it “in a heartbeat.”
Would the “Murder on the Orient Express” actress have slipped the cat suit back on a decade before Halle Berry stepped into the role? “Are you kidding me? In a heartbeat. I loved that part,” Pfeiffer said in a new profile in the New York Times.
“I felt like I was just getting comfortable and getting used to the claws and the mask, just figuring out how to move in all of that,” she added. “There was a little bit of talk about that, then that kind of faded away.”
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A quarter century ago, Tim Burton and Michael Keaton reunited for “Batman Returns,” a sequel to their 1989 film “Batman” that introduced Pfeiffer’s Selina Kyle, who is twisted by tragedy into the dangerous, seductive Catwoman.
Burton also started developing a Catwoman spin-off film featuring Pfeiffer, which is why Catwoman did not appear in Schumacher’s “Batman Forever.” But Burton’s plans fell by the wayside as the film got stuck in development. The spin-off eventually left Burton’s hands and became the 2004 “Catwoman” film with Halle Berry, which was universally panned.
Pfeiffer almost didn’t appear in “Batman Returns.” She had been attached to star in George Miller’s “Lorenzo’s Oil” that year and was replaced by Susan Sarandon, who, ironically, had been interested in playing Catwoman. Pfeiffer was also a backup to Annette Bening, who had to drop out of “Batman Returns” after she became pregnant.