Word: batmanic
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...soon cost his new bosses a bundle. As Sony planned its $3.4 billion takeover of Columbia Pictures last year, Yetnikoff tried to help out by orchestrating what turned into a costly $500 million deal to hire Jon Peters and Peter Guber, the producers of Batman, to run the movie studio. But rival Warner Bros. contended it had a contract with the producers and sued Sony. In a settlement, Warner won valuable properties, including half-ownership of the CBS record club...
Darkman wants to be Batman. Its hero, a scientist (Liam Neeson) scarred in body and soul after being left for dead by venal thugs, is a cloaked crusader bent more on vengeance than on justice. Director Sam Raimi, whose cheapo slasher film The Evil Dead achieved cult status, mines familiar comic-book terrain with a plucky heroine (Frances McDormand), a couple of corporate villains -- one slick (Colin Friels), the other slimy (Larry Drake) -- and plenty of explosive violence that virtually reads KA-BOOM! in block letters across the screen...
Last year for the first time the summer box-office revenue topped $2 billion. The surge was led by Batman, which cost $50 million to produce but brought in $251 million at the domestic wickets to rank as the fourth all-time movie hit. Not far behind -- at $197 million, ninth on the all-time list -- was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a gilt-edged sequel. These successes seemed to validate the rules that Hollywood likes to play by: bet big to win big; and if it worked before, do it again...
...finally collared Dart Man. The suspect: Jerome Wright, 33, a messenger at a Midtown advertising agency who police said was on probation for a previous drug conviction and had been under observation for psychiatric problems. They had less luck with Zodiac, who evaded a citywide dragnet. Where are Batman and Robin when Gotham City really needs them...
...this end, there is plenty of high-tech destruction and gratuitous violence. But it is violence of a slightly different sort; darkly comical, Robocop II's well engineered mayhem bears more of a resemblence to the black satire of death orchestrated by the Joker in Batman than to the senseless slaughter in Total Recall or the recent series of Rambo movies...