I felt that it was very important to design the Batmobile first...
...before we approached any of the other aspects of design of the film...
...because I had a very specific idea in my head...
...about a contemporary approach to a Batmobile.
And our approach to it would tell everybody who saw it...
...a lot about what we're doing with the whole film...
...which is a more grounded reality in which we're trying to base the story.
When we first started talking...
...Chris had this idea of crossing a Lamborghini and a Humvee.
Chris was sort of making a little primitive model out of Play-Duh...
...and said, "Sort of like this."
It was very, very crude. It looked more like a croissant than a car...
...but I felt strongly that if we cracked that and showed it to people...
...they'd get it or they wouldn't, and if they didn't, I'd know I was in trouble.
Fairly early in the process, Nathan Crowley, the production designer, came on...
...and while I was writing-- This was crazy.
--He created a little model shop in Chris' garage.
It was very much a film-school atmosphere. That was part of the fun.
We really decided to be private...
...and just started what I call "model bashing"...
...we just started making models of cars.
It's got bits of stealth bomber in it, it's got bits of Lamborghinis...
...bits of Hummers and all different things put together...
...in this marvelous combination.
Chris would write his script and then come into the garage...
...and I'd be covered in glue, with car concepts.
The funny thing is, the craftsmanship was really good too.
You could see in Chris a kid that had built little car models when he was younger.
He and Nathan had this down.
As an evolutionary process...
...Nathan was able to build one, and I would look at it...
...and make suggestions or actually change things on it myself...
...and then we would move to the next step and then the next one.
We made about five or six Batmobiles.
The one that is the finished Batmobile actually, I think, is the mock five...
...so we took about eight weeks to build.
When the script was done, we sort of presented not only the script...
...but all these great Photoshop elements...
...of what the world and the Batmobile would look like...
...so that Warner Bros. could get the whole picture.
And that initial prototype is 90 percent what the finished Batmobile became.
We took that model to England...
...found these great guys to produce the car full-size.
Chris wanted the Batmobile to be a real car, not just a car that looked pretty...
...but didn't actually function, you know. His jam was like:
"I want this to be a mean machine. I want it to perform...
...I want it to go through things."
And that was how we went into developing this whole car.
The challenge is how to make something as complicated as that steer and work.
Every piece of it has been made. You start with a clean jig...
...put the chassis on, start building the roll cage around the driver...
...and the occupants in there, and build it up from nothing.
The front end of the car is what is so different. There is no front axle.
There's nothing holding the wheels in the conventional way.
The wheels have to be held from the outside.
It was difficult, but we always knew it was possible.
And three, two, one, go.
Chris had described a cockpit opening like the petals of a flower.
We tried several times to talk him into an easier system...
...which made our life a bit easier, but he was not gonna have that.
The mechanism ended up where the front windscreen went up into the roof...
...and then the whole roof slides back, and then the two cockpit seats rise up.
It was a nightmare trying to get that right. You've just got to have guys who've got...
...technical knowledge and know how to put all of this together.
They were so faithful to our original kitbash model...
...that the glue globs that Nathan had put into the model...
...had been reproduced full-size.
It was quite a strange thing to look at.
It's 9'4" at it's Widest, and lengthwise it's 15 feet.
And height-wise it's about 5 foot, I think. Weighs 2 and half tons.
There's nearly half a ton of rear axle and wheels and tires...
...so there's a big chunk of the weight sitting there.
Everybody was surprised to find that the Batmobile was ready...
...before we thought it was gonna be.
That's been very thrilling, to watch a model...
...that Nathan Crowleyjust built in my garage back in L.A...
"become a full-size working vehicle.
Here we have Andy and Jim going for the land-speed record.
It was about two weeks before we started filming...
...that we got the first prototype without all the bodywork on...
...just a working chassis with the engine in.
So we were sneaking the oar around...
...taking it out to sort of hidden tracks and things...
...seeing what breaks, what doesn't break.
Start off testing it slowly, just drive it in a straight line...
...make sure it handles okay.
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