Sam Hamm

The screenwriter of Batman has the best name ever: Sam Hamm. It's so fun to say Sam Hamm we can't stop saying Sam Hamm.

Sam Hamm.

But's someone more important to the Batman script than Green-Eggs-And-Sam-Hamm, and that's a man named Michael Uslan. He's the Batman to Sam Hamm's Robin.

Who is Michael Uslan and why is he so important? Well, it was Uslan who had the vision of a darker Batman. He hated the campy Adam West show so much that he made it his life's mission to make a Batman film that more closely aligned with the original comic book character. Uslan, a comics fanatic and a professor who taught the nation's first course on comic books (so pretty much the coolest guy ever?) saved his money and bought the rights to Batman for a paltry $50k in 1979. He must have felt like Joker getting away with bank robbery.

It took ten years of Hollywood hustle to finally convince someone to make Batman. But Uslan needed a script. Inspired by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns Uslan hired a writer to script his vision: Sam Hamm.

The rest is Batman history. (Source)

Hamm's Batman script was reworked by Burton collaborator Warren Skaaren and Hamm still seems bitter about it, saying his original version was better. (Source)

Watch out, Batman. As Joker taught us, the pen is mightier than the sword, and this slighted screenwriter, unable to let go of his anger, might one day become a supervillain: SamHamm-Man.