Batman Turns 60 On The Big Screen And The Records He Holds Are Extraordinary
On July 30, 1966, the first feature-length superhero movie ever made opened in theaters across North America. It was Batman: The Movie, starring Adam West in the role he had made famous on ABC's hit Batman television series, and it was completely, unapologetically, gloriously absurd. In one of the film's most celebrated sequences, Batman hangs from a ladder beneath a helicopter battling a rubber shark, which he eventually defeats by reaching into the Bat-Copter and retrieving a can of Shark-Repellent Bat Spray. The shark falls back into the ocean and explodes. The audience cheered. Sixty years later, Batman remains the most filmed superhero in history, having appeared as the sole protagonist in 10 feature films and as part of ensemble casts in five more, not counting the 2017 Lego Batman Movie. His closest competitor, Superman, has starred in seven solo features. The Caped Crusader's dark themes, moral complexity, and famous rogues gallery have made him a perennially irresistible subject for filmmakers across every era of cinema.
Batman also holds the record for the most actors to play the same superhero in theatrically released feature films, with seven performers having worn the mask in live-action cinema since 1966: Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, and Robert Pattinson. He holds the record for the most-rebooted cinema superhero, with his big-screen story having been restarted from scratch across five distinct continuities. Films starring Batman have received 18 Academy Award nominations, more than those of any other superhero, and three Oscar winners have played the role: George Clooney, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck, though Guinness notes tactfully that Clooney's Oscar was emphatically not for Batman and Robin. The single most celebrated performance in the franchise's history is arguably Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in Christopher Nolan's 2008 film The Dark Knight, which earned Ledger a posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Six decades after Adam West defeated a rubber shark with a can of spray, the character who inspired that moment is still breaking records.
