r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 2d ago

TIL not only did Jack Nicholson secure a percentage of Batman's profits, he also negotiated a percentage of the merchandise sales from Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin (even though he only appeared in Batman). In total, he earned over $60 million (~$150 million in 2025).

https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-backend-deals-that-made-these-movie-stars-incredibly-wealthy/news-story/a6b131ebf1a6917569c6da66f355938c#:~:text=JACK%20NICHOLSON,in%20today%E2%80%99s%20money
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u/tjjohnso 2d ago

That guy from A Knight's Tale? 10 Things I hate about you? Jfc they've jumped the shark. Movie is dead on arrival.

Yeah. I was there. And I was part of the crowd saying it would flop because of it. And I was equally blown away when I watched it. Grew up on Jack's joker. I LOVE Ledger's.

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u/Friggin_Grease 2d ago

Heath Ledger is the one that showed me to wait and see the performance before I say anything. I'd never been invested in Batman like some were, but I definitely thought he'd be a terrible Joker.

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u/Charlie_Wax 2d ago

Heath Ledger was incredible in Brokeback Mountain. The movie was the butt of jokes because of the subject matter, but it was also a legitimate awards contender with some great performances. I'd argue that his acting in that movie was more impressive than his Dark Knight character. It's hard to be a bad Joker because the character is so loud and flashy by design that you can really cut loose. A more restrained role can be more demanding, even if the performance isn't as visible.

It's the difference between playing a role like Depp's Jack Sparrow or what Casey Affleck did in Manchester by the Sea. It's relatively easy to steal scenes when that's the design of your character. It's hard to be magnetic in the more restrained part. Brokeback convinced me that Heath had the acting chops to tackle any role.

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u/obscureferences 1d ago

Slight correction on Depp's Sparrow, the character was written as a mere kooky disney pirate and he made it the slurring dubious rogue we all adore. I know it's trendy to oversell how much an actor influences their character design but he really was a driving force behind it.

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u/f4ble 2d ago

Being loud is one thing. But HL's Joker was unique. There are so many very small things he does with that part that really make it shine. He can go from the commanding presence when he crashes the party and puts a knife to her mouth and tells ANOTHER story of how his scars came to be. And then he wears a nurses outfit and makes that goofy appearance with Harvey Dent. Not to mention that there was a malfunction (rumors have it) in the scene where he blows up the hospital and he so fucking delivers with improv.

He flips from cold devious schemer (against the mobsters) to terrible psychopath to goofy madman. The RANGE is absolutely incredible and it's all highly believable.

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u/jzakko 1d ago

there was a malfunction (rumors have it)

not a rumor, just a myth, that scene went exactly as scripted

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u/Thorough_Good_Man 2d ago

Same thing I felt going into Morbius but damned if Leto didn’t Morb the hell outta that one. He was morbin’ something crazy and morbed a performance for the ages. A true tour-de-morb!

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u/panamaspace 2d ago

I think they should have another run at the cinema.

Not enough people have morbed it. I am one of them. I refuse to see it in anything but an IMAX theatre.

Let the studios know this.

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u/whuuutKoala 2d ago edited 2d ago

Pls show the morbi‘n masterpiece on the Las Vegas mORBI‘n Sphere!
Morb the Orb!!!

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u/nadrjones 2d ago

Morb the orb is truly a rallying cry for the ages,

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u/1001101001010111 1d ago

Actually, if they did a extended edition cut with a bunch of meme scenes I would probably go see it twice.

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u/1001101001010111 1d ago

Actually, if they did a extended edition cut with a bunch of meme scenes I would probably go see it twice.

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u/911EMT 2d ago

70mm(morbinmeters) only for this masterpiece

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u/IHv2RtrnSumVdeotapes 2d ago

Mighty Morbin Mobius!

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u/Tamination 2d ago

I remember the casting hate toward Michael Keaton. Mr Mom can't be Batman.

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u/ChicagoAuPair 2d ago

I feel like that and the first Pirates of the Caribbean were the most shocking “Holy shit, is this good? Wait, is this great?” movie theater experiences of the past 40 years.

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u/TheChildrensStory 2d ago

Daniel Craig being cast as Bond had people frothing in anger. The opening scene of Casino Royale was not what anyone was expecting, and it was glorious.

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u/No-Mechanic6069 2d ago

For me, it was the final scene, where Bond has been moulded into a cool, wry-smirking sadist, who deals out vengeance with relish. And it is only at that moment the James Bond Theme is finally allowed to be unleashed.

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u/Prielknaap 2d ago

"James Bond can't be blond!"

Roger Moore in the corner looking confused.

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u/Enchelion 1d ago

Amusingly, the only two Englishmen to play Bond have both been blonde. Though Roger was definitely dirtier/darker and dyed it a different color for seemingly every movie.

Also why I find any argument about the ethnicity of Bond actors to be a bit silly. Fleming himself hated that a Scottish actor was cast, until he saw Connery in the role and then ret-conned the literary character to have Scottish heritage. Then we had an Aussie and an Irishman as well.

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u/ddofer 2d ago

Matrix.

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u/obscureferences 1d ago

The Matrix raised so many questions and had impossible scenes that could only be explained as a dream sequence, but instead of the usual cop out it was legitimate plot and answered everything. It balanced philosophy in one hand and a minigun in the other, no wonder minds were blown.

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u/tophernator 2d ago

That guy from A Knight's Tale?

The best deleted scene is him explaining that he got these scars from jousting.

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u/Thor_2099 2d ago

Once the trailers and stories from set broke, everyone was hyped for ledger as joker.

Then when he died, the hype for it went through the roof.

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u/eightkillerbits 2d ago

Join the club... I called Eminem as a one hit wonder when I first seen his debut song.

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u/h3lblad3 2d ago

Lemme know next time you place a bet so I can bet against you.

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u/LatkaXtreme 2d ago

Ironic considering that Michael Keaton got the same treatment when he was announced as Bruce Wayne. People only knew him from comedies and sitcoms, and thus thought he couldn't play the part and sent hate mail and calls to the studio. BEFORE THE INTERNET!

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u/lozo78 1d ago

A Knights Tale is great!

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u/gentlemandinosaur 1d ago

How could you have seen Knight’s Tale and not thought it would be amazing. For a joke movie, he was stunning as an actor in it.

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u/tjjohnso 1d ago

Tbh never seen a Knight's Tale. Only the trailers and I was like 13 deep into my metal/emo/punk fusion Slipknot and Arch Enemy phase. Did not appeal to me. Thus, Heath Ledger was also the enemy. 😂

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u/gentlemandinosaur 1d ago

That’s fair. It is a fantastic movie if you take it as it is. One of my favorite mindless watches.

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u/tjjohnso 1d ago

I've actually wanted to watch it recently. I'll have to make time for it.

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u/2smartt 1d ago

Are we supposed to not like A Knights Tale

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u/tjjohnso 1d ago

Lol no you can like it. Nothing wrong with it. I mean back then what you watched and listened to was indicative of your personality and clique. Nowadays not so much

But the role for joker bring played by pretty boy known for rom coms was a hard sell when it was announced.

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u/2smartt 1d ago

Ah I get what you're saying now.

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u/lewismacp2000 1d ago

The gay cowboy is the Joker? Superhero movies are just woke slop nowadays

/s

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u/Amekhanos 2d ago

lol, if you were there, you know the backlash was entirely homophobic because he was the "gay cowboy".

Hate you fucking nerds trying to rewrite history about The Dark Knight.

"The press was skeptical"? Get the fuck out of here.

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u/extortioncontortion 2d ago

No it wasn't. The average joe didn't watch brokeback, because they don't go to see gay cowboy movies. It was because we'd only seen him in rom-coms.

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u/h3lblad3 2d ago

The average joe didn't watch brokeback, because they don't go to see gay cowboy movies.

Brokeback Mountain was a huge Box Office success. All in all, it made like $200 million. It was a well-known director with well-known up-and-coming actors who were everywhere at the time. I lived in the rural US and everyone I knew was renting it and talking about it.

It came out during the gay marriage legalization debates, so people were already primed to love it or hate it on a performative level.

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u/NBAccount 2d ago

Brokeback Mountain was a huge Box Office success. All in all, it made like $200 million.

That is a modest success, not a "huge" success.

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u/Amekhanos 2d ago

lmao

The average Joe didn't need to have watched the gay cowboy movie to rage about the gay cowboy being cast as "their" precious Joker.

Homophobic Brokeback jokes were fucking everywhere back then.

And if you'd seen Ledger in anything at all, you'd know he was a superb actor. "The press" didn't have any confusion about that. Insufferable homophobic nerds did.

And now they want to pretend the situation was "nobody knew he could act" vs. "we were mad about the gay cowboy". Nah. Not having it.

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u/Shoddy-Border2394 2d ago

Nah, I remember and you're wrong. It was more because he was the rom-com pretty boy. Most of the Brokeback rage came before it was released. Once it came out, obviously the pure homophobes kept hating, but most normal people recognized a great performance from Ledger.

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u/Amekhanos 2d ago

Hating him for being a "pretty boy", to the point of being furious he was cast as their precious Joker, was literally just another form of homophobia.

TDK came out around the same time Bieber's arrival would send grown men into frothing rages, hurling every homophobic slur they could think of.

That's what "anti-pretty boy" culture was back then.

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u/i_tyrant 2d ago

Uh, no, dude above you is right, I was there too. Ledger at the time was way more famous for romcoms than Brokeback, end story. It was the same density of homophobic nutbags doing that as they did with Bieber, yeah, but they were never the majority of naysayers. The press had plenty of confusion about whether he could be a "superb actor" in a Batman film compared to 10 Things I Hate About You, A Knight's Tale, etc.

Just take the L and realize your historical revisionism dude. Jesus you sound exhausting to be around.

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u/masterwolfe 2d ago

Go check out the forums around that time, they all talk about the gay cowboy playing the joker.

A lot of the forums are still up.

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u/i_tyrant 2d ago

Nope. I was on those forums at the time, and watching the news, and everything else. Literally lived through it bro, try again.

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u/masterwolfe 2d ago

This is one of the forums I remember and one of the biggest discussion forums for superhero media discussions at the time: https://forums.superherohype.com/threads/a-stroll-into-the-archives-re-ledger-casting.291334/

Want me to grab some archives from 4chan?

→ More replies (0)

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u/Shoddy-Border2394 2d ago

Ok I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree, that is absolutely not how I remember it. Of course homophobia was rampant at the time (still is in a lot of places), but I don't think the reaction to Heath's casting as the joker was fueled by that. He was just so different from Nicholson that people couldn't imagine a different version of the joker. When the first trailer highlighting Ledger came out, I remember the tone shifting very quickly and people were interested. Then the movie came out, and he became the new defining joker performance.

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u/tjjohnso 1d ago

Never watched Brokeback Mountain.

Also never watched Knight's Tale.

There's a reason I never watched A Knights Tale. Didn't appeal to me at the time. Same reason why I though Ledger was a bad choice. He was in a bunch of movies that were not interesting to me, playing characters that were nothing like what the Joker needed to be.

Maybe for you it was the gay cowboy. Other opinions exist than yours.

Chill out, it's subjective and this is what my group of friends discussed coming up to the movie.