Film producer dishes on "the Dark Night": how batman almost never left the bat cage.

• Position: YOUR LIFE - Michael Uslan

He has generated $2.600.000.000 in worldwide box office grosses, countless millions in toy and merchandise sates, and he is not done yet. Barman is one of the world's most dependable film properties. with even the worst entry in the franchise's history charting $238.000.000 in receipts. "When I bought the film rights to Barman in 1979. no one wanted to make a Batman movie. or at least not a good one." relates Michael Uslan executive producer--along with partner Benjamin Melnicker--of the modern Batman film franchise.

Uslan was shot down early and often by studio heads--for seemingly ridiculous reasons. "I was rejected by every studio in town. multiple times, before I was able to convince people that Batman would be viable as a serious interpretation and not as a comedy," notes Uslan who tells the story in his new memoir The Boy Who Loved Batman.

"One complained that it wouldn't make money because 'Annie'--the musical version of Little Orphan Annie--didn't make money. I asked him what 'Annie' had to do with Batman. and he replied. 'Oh come one. Michael they're both from the funny pages.'

"One guy even told me that Batman and Robin wouldn't work because a Sean Connery movie about an aging Robin Hood and Maid Marian--called 'Robin and Marian'--didn't work. I didn't bother to press him, but I'm assuming he felt that having the name 'Robin' in the title was somehow box office poison.

"At the end of the day, it was clear that the studio bosses in the 1970s and 1980s felt that comic books weren't worthy of being translated into movies. Their view was that comic books were just cheap, disposable entertainment for kids."

Of course, since 1989's "Batman," comic books have been rich fodder for studios, with Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man, and others bringing in billions of dollars in box office and licensing revenue. "What we showed with 'Batman' was that you could make a good, dark, serious comic book movie," Uslan declares. "What we proved with the 'Dark Knight' was that we could use comic book-based material to transcend the genre and simply make a good movie, period. The bottom line is that 'Batman' changed the industry."

Excitement about the newest addition, "The Dark Knight Rises," is revving up for its premiere this month. The Warner Bros. film stars Christian Bale as Batman and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.

"I grew up immersed in comics. I loved them all. My hands-down favorite, though--then and now--is Batman," explains Uslan. "I know every detail...