Long before Iron Man kickstarted the MCU and before Spider-Man came swinging onto the big screen, Tim Burton gave us Batman. An iconic piece of cinema not just for the superhero genre, but the movie industry as a whole. Now someone has taken Burton's Batman and reimagined it as a silent movie.Documentary filmmaker Ben Crew is the creative mind behind the project, revealing to Polygon that the adaptation has been three years in the making. Crew completed and shared the first eight minutes of his silent version of Batman in 2019 but it didn't get much attention. Nevertheless, he continued on with his passion project and has now adapted the entire movie to make it appear as if it was made a century ago.“Before I even knew how to use editing software, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to watch Batman as a silent film?',” Crew said. The filmmaker finished the movie a year ago but again, sharing it didn't generate much traction. It wasn't until revealing the project on Twitter recently that it subsequently went viral and Batman fans are falling in love with it.
“I hadn’t planned on going viral which I think is something people really respond to. I just wanted to share my love of silent cinema and Burton’s film.” You can watch Crew's silent version of Batman through the Internet Archive. It maintains the original score and Joker's laugh, but replaces some of the key dialogue with slides.
The project has proven so popular that it might be screened in cinemas. Crew will need to get Warner Bros. to agree to that though, of course, but said those who want to see it will be able to no matter what, even if Warner Bros. doesn't like his work. The reaction to the movie has been so positive that Crew has also admitted he may well give Batman Returns the same treatment.