Michael Uslan: The True Story of Batman With Sean Callagy

27:26We had Charlie Sheen here. We had Ralph Macchio here. we had like arguably the most brilliant woman in AI in America that was Google's chief decision officer and ran their AI programs trained 20 ,000 people at Google and we had David and when we had this conversation this was, and I thank Brian Esposito let's hear for Brian, for Michael being here so thank you Brian and we just like, we had eight folks coming to speak. We have still Sugar Ray Leonard and Gary Vaynerchuk and Kevin Mayer that acquired Lucas Films and Pixar and Marvel for Disney, Sadia Khan tonight. And it was like, oh my god, like this is unbelievable this opportunity of all these speakers.

28:15And I was like, we just can't, we can't. I can't tell you how grateful I am because and I want to say this so precisely I don't want to in any way, shape, or form limit all of the prior insanity, but there has been no more practically useful conversation we've had than this one. The dude just picked up the phone, disruptively went from Hello to Yes, created virality before they were computers. That's what this guy did. And you can do the same. Okay. Sorry, Michael. Please, back to you. Well, I got invited on radio and TV talk shows. Every class I ever taught, the classroom was filled with television cameras and reporters.

29:10NBC Nightly News, the CBS Evening News. We had, oh, there was one day I had Parade Magazine, Family Weekly, and Playboy. I mean, everybody was into this. And the word was spreading. So two weeks later, my phone rings, and it is this exuberant male voice. He goes, hi, is this Mike Uslan? I go, yeah. Hiya, Mike, this is Stan Lee from Marvel Comics in New York City. It's crazy. I call this my burning bush moment. I was talking to my god, and Stan said, you know, Mike, I'm seeing you on TV. I'm reading about you in newspapers. What you're doing is great for the whole comic book industry. How can I help you?

29:50And that was the moment Stan changed from my idol to my mentor. That's unbelievable. And eventually building up a friendship. Unbelievable, dude. I mean, Stan Lee, many people relate to. Until I did some research a little bit more recently, about two months ago, I thought Stan Lee was the creator of Marvel Comics. He was not, but he is the face, the identity of Marvel. Who is Stan Lee, your mentor? Who is he in the comic world and the Marvel world, according to Michael Usland? He is the co-creator of the entire pantheon of Marvel superheroes. He is the person that elevated comic books. Up until that time, comic books were being aimed at 8 - to 12-year-old boys.

30:41And Stan started to write more intelligently in a more sophisticated graphic storytelling manner, along with the fabulous artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko who worked with him, created with him. And he turned comic books into something that you could continue to read as you hit high school, as you hit college. And he opened up the audience worldwide to older people which ushered in the age of graphic novels, which is where we are today. So I don't know how you measure that, but it really is immeasurable. Wow, unbelievable. And has anybody here, if you have never read a comic book, ever, say yes.

31:26If you've never read a graphic novel, say yes. So how would you articulate, Michael, what graphic novels are, just so we can contextualize all this and then go back into the 70s rollout up until you acquire this option, which I cannot wait to hear this story. But what is a graphic novel, according to Michael Uslan? Those of you who are not Gen Z, you need to tune in. Because this is one of the ways the world is changing. Graphic novels, think of the floppy comic books, the individual issues we all read. Think about putting four or five or six of them together and publishing it as a book form. Okay, that's the concept of a graphic novel.

32:14Go to a Barnes & Noble while there's still some left and go through the aisles and you will see an entire row of graphic novels. And then you will see two rows of manga. Manga are graphic novels coming out of Japan. There's manhwa coming out of Korea. And this is where it is all moving. uh the the i think the last statistic i saw was currently 50 percent of all gen z's and millennials are reading graphic novels monthly 50 percent uh overall for all groups it's 30 percent and it's growing in leaps and bounds i just spoke at new york comic-con javits center 225 ,000 people. It's about one-third now Asian groups that are set up there.

33:07The feeling is within just a couple of years, it will dominate both San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic-Con. That's how fast things are changing, whether it's American or English-speaking graphic novels, graphic novels coming from Europe, or the fastest growing audience out of Asia. amazing and um like to give you just a bit of an illustration um a graphic novel that i loved incredibly was batman and jack the ripper so this is a deep graphic novel and you just open up and batman is in the time of jack the ripper and the greatest detective ever because batman was introduced not in a bat a comic called batman but in a comic called detective comics and now Now, Batman is in pursuit of Jack the Ripper.

33:53And that's not necessarily known as a great graphic novel, but it was a graphic novel I love. And then at some point, Batman was like the Lone Ranger, but seriously, not in jest. So this world in my 20s of graphic novels emerging became something I would do, Michael, on every Friday. I was in the beginning of building this formula, this work, and not wanting to go blind and be broke. And my de-stressor wasn't alcohol. It wasn't drugs, thankfully. But it was going to, at the Bergen Mall, the comic book store, and buying every single Batman detective comic, all the graphic novels. And then I would spread to getting Superman.

34:39And for those, again, that don't know, there's alternate storylines running for these characters as the proliferation of more and more comic books came out through the 1980s and through the 1990s. and it's an entire universe of dynamics. So again, I thank you for all that. So what year is this you're teaching in Indiana? What year? I'm sorry, what year are you teaching these courses? This was the early 70s. Okay, so how does... 72, 34. Now Stan Lee is your mentor, so how do we move towards you and Batman? Okay, so there were two giant steps to come. Two hours after Stan called me, I get a call from the president of DC Comics.

35:19and they said we've been listening to you on the radio reading about you in magazines you're a very innovative young man we'd like to fly you to New York and discuss ways we could work together okay I'm in New York and they offer me a job where I would work in the offices during my summers and then they would put me on retainer and help me pay with the rest of my way through Indiana University. Wow. So I'm on the job less than a week in New York. It's the end of a day. I hear yelling and screaming coming from down the hall. I think somebody's being murdered. I go running down. It's the editor of a comic book called The Shadow.

36:03The Shadow is a very, very famous character in the history of media. Dark, mysterious, and the singular major influence on Bill Finger and Bob Kane and the creation of Batman. And all the Shadow's adventures took place in the 30s and 40s. And it was the editor of the Shadow. So I said, are you okay? He goes, no, I am not okay. I go, Denny, what's the problem? He said, they just told me they switched our publishing schedule and that a Shadow comic book script is due in by tomorrow afternoon. I said, so why is that bad? He said, Michael, it's bad because I don't have a shadow script. I don't have a shadow story.

36:45I don't even have an idea for a shadow story. I said, I have an idea for a shadow story. He said, you do? I didn't.

36:58But I recognized that the door was open a crack, so I shoved my foot in. He said, all right, come in, sit down. What's your idea for a shadow story? You're going to love this. My wife, Nancy, at that point, my girlfriend, Nancy, and I just came back from a trip to Niagara Falls. And when we were up there, we learned that back in the 30s and 40s, people were going over the falls in barrels and walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. I said, picture this shadow and a bad guy battling on a tightrope over Niagara Falls at night with floodlights going. He said, now that's a great visual. That'll make a great cover.

37:39But what's the story about? I said, well, I was just getting to that. The story is about smuggling. What are they smuggling? Well, they are smuggling drugs. And he says, well, Michael, you know, a story, you need a creative take. You need something really creative. I said, Denny, this is the best part. I've been saving it for last.

38:10they were going over the falls and barrels back then. False bottoms in the barrels, that's where they hide the drugs. They go over the Canadian side, they wash up onto the American side, that's how they get them across. He said, now that's different, that's creative. Can you have a full script on my desk by six o 'clock tomorrow? I said, not a problem. He says, go do it. I'm now a writer for DC Comics. Unbelievable.

38:40Unbelievable levels of self-mastery. If you're present, you would say yes. Influence mastery, if you're present, you would say yes. Ecosystem merging process mastery, say yes. He's got to have the dean say yes. He's got to have the press say yes. He's got to then have the creator of the shadow say yes. It's incredible. And the power of the stage and the microphone is what generates the inbound call from Stanley, Marvel, and DC. The intersection of the entire comic world is in search of Michael Uselin because Michael has created a stage and a microphone for himself, not only in the college classroom, but also in the media, on radio, on television.

39:24Why can't you do the same? If you're inspired to do the same, say yes. If you're willing to commit to do the same, say yes. you don't need all the yeses you just need the right ones present to it? yeah let's hear it for that so thank you Michael so the shadow and please keep us going if you are enthralled say yes okay please I pull an all nighter I get the script done I hand it in two weeks later I'm walking down the halls of DC Comics and who's coming toward me but a very important editor, one of the most important editors in comic book history who reintroduced the dark Batman to comic books after that thing went off the air.

40:11And he's a gruff guy. He was a marshmallow once he got to know him, but he was pretty gruff. And he sees me come and he goes, Hey, kid. I said, Yes, Julie. He goes, I read your shadow script. I said, You did? He goes, Yeah. It didn't stink. I said oh thank you so much thank you very very much he goes how'd you like to take a shot at writing Batman

40:39I still get the chills I still get the chills what did you feel in that moment stunned the fact that I can still whenever I say it today still get the chills up my neck gives you an idea of the impact it had this was a dream I had since I was 8 years old to one day write Batman comics. And when my first Batman comic book came out, through the tears, admittedly, I panicked. I said, oh my God, this dream I had since I was eight has come true. I don't have a dream anymore. I need a new dream. And that's when I remembered back that cold night in January 66, I said, okay, now's the moment. I gotta go make dark and serious Batman movies.

41:25I have to show the whole world the true Batman. And that was the next step forward. What may I ask, what was the, was it Batman, Detective Comics? What was your first Batman creation? Detective Comics number 460. I want Detective Comics number 460 team for sure. And if you want to see the shadow with Niagara Falls, it's the shadow number nine. Guys, let's pull up and put up on the screen Shadow No. 9. Let's grab that. And Batman, Detective Comics, right? Detective Comics episode 460. So Detective Comics 460, Shadow No. 9. Let's close up on the screen in the moment in honor of Michael. If you're inspired, say yes.

42:14Yeah. And if you note, it's also Michael's influence mastery in his contextualization, emotional and energetic transference, and delivery. if you're present to that, say yes. If you find, I'm not saying that Michael, that you like Michael most, that's not the question, maybe you do, but if you find his influence mastery in delivering the truth of the points for you to take away, is the most powerful of anyone yet on this stage, say yes. Undoubtedly. Yeah, but now come all the setbacks and all the heartbreak. So which is this now, because I can't see? Yeah, that's my first Batman story. Let's hear it for that.

42:57And who's on? I can't see him. What's on the cover? Well, first of all, you see the logo for DC Comics back in the 70s up there, the line of superstars? I designed that. And that was one of my proud contributions to DC Comics. I figured if Batman existed in the real world and villains were analyzing this, they said nobody could be that great. Nobody could have so many skill sets. there has to be more than one Batman. And this group of criminals come up and they look at everything. All right, one clearly is acrobatic. One clearly is really strong. One clearly is super smart. And they believe that there are three men who together comprise a team that everybody believes is one Batman.

43:42And Bruce Wayne gets onto this and sets them up so that it looks like what they are saying is actually what the case is, and then he uses it to boomerang back and defeat them. Wow. That is absolutely unbelievable. Unbelievable. And how did you continue? Do we have Shadow? Let's go with Shadow. Number nine. So, yes, please take us from there. Whenever you guys have Shadow, just put it up. So what happens from there? Now this vision of bringing Batman to the big screen, please. All right. So now I needed to go to work in the movie business, movie and TV business. But again, I know nobody in the industry.

44:24I have no relatives in the industry. So my senior year at Indiana, every Friday, I went to the library. They got a copy of Variety magazine, which is the Bible for the movie TV industry. I took a yellow notepad and a pen. I'm that old. And I would write down the names of any executive that I ever saw listed, what their title was, what their company was. At the end of my senior year, I had a list of 372 executives in the movie and TV industry and was able to type out and send 372 resumes to specific human beings, not to human resources. Hold on now. Hold on now. So if you've ever used AI, say yes.

45:12If you could produce 372 letters to ideal potential ecosystem partners for you in two hours or less, if you know that's true, say yes. If you have not done it, say yes. No judgment. This dude did it on a typewriter. That's why he's sitting here. and there's no, yeah, I'm going to go, one sec, one sec, one sec, one sec, wait, one sec. It's not judgment to feel bad from. It's simply to make a behavioral change. He didn't dream of slaying the dragon. He went out and found the dragon and he sprinted into the cave repeatedly and continuously.

46:04there is no more efficient embodiment story of hello ds than what you're sharing the efficiency with which you're sharing this and michael mentioned the green room is like yeah i kind of go off on tangents sometimes like dude you are insanely masterfully laser focused with unbelievable heart energy and transference uh i had no idea like how master and i don't say to me. This is what I do for a living. This is my mastery in the world. The words I'm saying to you, my opinion is about as informed an opinion as on the planet. That's what I do. And I'm just, brother, I see you. This is incredible how you deliver.

46:45But please, over to you. I attribute that to my mom. My mom taught me and my brother the meaning of commitment and perseverance. And I go back to the Little League story where I couldn't swing a bat. and I had a jerk for a coach. I was eight years old. And at the end of one little league game, come on, I'm eight years old, this coach pulls aside three of us just out of range of our parents where they could hear it and starts screaming in my face and says, you guys all struck out more than once this game. You cost us this game. Oh, my God. The three of you are a bunch of clowns. Get out of my face.

47:25Oh, my God. And I went home hysterical. And of course, my mom had her mom radar going, and she knew something was up. And I said, I hate him. I hate this whole thing. I'm never going back. And my mom says, yes, you are. And I got really upset. She said, listen to me. She goes, I'm going to talk to him. That will never, ever, ever happen again. I promise you that. But Michael, you made a commitment to your team that you would show up at every practice and every game. and sometimes when we make a commitment it becomes a matter of what we call honor and we have to honor those commitments and sometimes doing that will cause pain so you have to endure a little bit of pain but this is a matter of honor and you have to fulfill it you don't have to go back next year if you don't want to and it was my mother's making us understand this whole concept of commitment, perseverance, and pain that have helped both me and my brother through life.

48:28My brother was in a horrible motorcycle accident. He was in the hospital for a year. Oh, my God. Had 26 operations. Oh, my God. And was the fifth microsurgery leg reattachment in the country. Oh, my God. And through all that pain and all that suffering, it was my mother's, what she put into him about persevering, enduring the pain, and getting across the finish line ultimately. So it impacted us in different ways, but it was the same thing. My God. Wow. Let's hear what this.

49:03And if I may ask this, so clear. So we break things, just for fun, to give Michael a sense of what we're up to, just throw the full formula slide up there, tank for a sec. So So this conversation that you're sharing is, for us, the work that we claim we're in is the codification of all results ever produced in the world. It's a small claim. And we say we have the only complete holistic diagnostic dynamic interconnected actualization tool for all of human AI business and mission acceleration on Earth that explains the rise and fall of the Greek and Roman empires, explains the story of Moses, the proliferation of Batman and Marvel, your life, everything, mine, everyone's here.

49:49And so we're having a conversation right now with your mom about self-mastery, the seven components that liberate or destroy our ability to take its own action, and you are a master of taking its own action. But then you have to cause yes. So it isn't just the perseverance, it's the mastery. Just the concept of how you communicated with the people in the newspaper and how you frame it. This is outrageous. It's a communist plot. That's an unbelievable demonstration of human influence. Any place that came from? Was it your mom, who's also a masterful communicator? Where is your masterful ability to create yes from?

50:24We say, and no, there's four steps, 12 indispensable elements, four energies in that codification. Where did yours come from? Because it is remarkable. I think it comes from both my comic book influence and my Jersey influence. Let's hear it for that. Look, we have a Jersey attitude, right? That can't be beat. I got to tell you a story. Do we have time? We have. Dude, you guys can do whatever you want. If you want more of Michael, say yes. Okay. Yeah. All right. Here's what I mean by Jersey attitude. I had a comic book property that I wanted to make into a movie and Bruce Willis was interested in it.

51:08This is many years ago. And his agent manager talked to them, and they said, all right, we're going to set up a lunch for you to meet Bruce and talk about it. He said, Michael, you know, Bruce can be challenging sometimes, and if he has a bad attitude or something, please don't take it personally. I said, I think I can handle it. I'm okay. So I go to meet him, and he's already sitting down. I introduced myself before I can even get my butt in the seat. He goes, you know the only reason I took this damn meeting was because they told me you were a Jersey boy like me. He said, is that true or is that just more Hollywood BS?

51:47I said, no actually that's true. And he goes, yeah. I go, yeah. He goes, where are you from? I said, well I grew up at exit 105 and today I live at exit 145. At that he He smiles. He stands up. He goes, only a Jersey boy knows how to talk like that. Comes over and gives me a big bear hug. I said, Bruce, where are you from? He said, exit two. I said, exit two? Screw you. That's Delaware. That's not even New Jersey.

52:20What is exit two? Kate May is exit one. Pensauken. Okay, Pensauken. That is super funny. But he got it. It's this attitude. We both respected each other. That is super fire. I think that's part of it. So let's throw up just shadow number nine real quick. I know we had something in my peripheral before, just so we can have that on the screen and get a quick description, if we don't mind, Tink. And as we are sourcing back to shadow number nine, so we're not yet at, here we go. So this is, I can't see. Is that over the, did it end up being over Niagara Falls? Yeah, that's Niagara Falls in the background.

53:00on the light. That's where it all started. And The Shadow was a great radio show. Is that right? Yes. Originally a radio show and a pulp magazine created in 1931. That is super cool. I mean there's so much that I'm sure everyone does. Just out of curiosity, when were comics originated? Are you present for that? What's considered to be the first American comic book or around what time frame, if you happen to know Michael? Well, there's different ways historically you can answer this question, but I'll say the modern day version of the comic book took place in the mid-30s when a couple of brilliant guys decided to take a newspaper comic strip, fold it in half, fold it again, fold it again, staple it, cut it, put a 10 cent price sticker on it, and then drop them off at a bunch of little outlets around Manhattan.

53:55and went back the next week and found they were all sold out. And he said, oh, this may be something. And then the next major step forward was when a gentleman named Major Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson formed a little company, put out a comic book called New Fun Comics in 1935. And that company ultimately became DC Comics, joined in 1939 by Timely Comics, which would later become Marvel Comics. and it was the need for superheroes as we were approaching World War II. That's what really propelled the comic book industry. Superman was created in Action Comics 1, June 1938, and that opened up the floodgates.

54:39Batman, May 39, then came Wonder Woman, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Captain Marvel, and it just exploded from there. And Captain America, was that pre? Captain America was December 1941. How's that for a coincidence? There we go. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. They were two young Jewish men who were keenly aware of what was happening in Germany with Hitler, what was happening in Europe, and wanted to bring it to the attention of the United States, which up till that point were really turning their backs on it. They were really not trying to acknowledge it. They were trying to appease a lot of people and countries.

55:19And on the cover of Captain America number one, there's Captain America slugging Adolf Hitler in the jaw. Let's pull that up. Let's throw that up on the screen. Captain America slugging Adolf Hitler in the face. Captain America one. That is unbelievable. The power of story, the power of heroic, unique identity is this landing. You need your heroic, unique identity. you're not an accountant. You're not an attorney. You're not a financial service provider. And if you are, you are forgotten before you're done with the sentence of what you do. That is not what you do. Unless you choose it, and that would be a very foolish choice, about as foolish as leaving Batman on surfboards with spray shark repellent.

56:06If that is landing, say yes. And being the goofball comic, that is not your answer. being the hero. If you hear that, say yes. So, please, now this vision of film is present, and where do we go? Now come all the setbacks. Okay. 372 resumes went out. I got two job offers. Oops, sorry. What is that? Out of 372 resumes, I got two job offers. Wow. One was to go to work for a talent agency in New York, work in their mailroom. They were willing to pay me$95 a week. I would have to relocate on my own dime from Indiana to New York. Nancy and I planned on getting married after we graduated. I didn't think the two of us could live comfortably on$95 a week in New York City.

56:55Second offer, from Los Angeles, producer of a lot of these big movies like Earthquake and Rollercoaster and some of the disaster films, said, I'll make you a production assistant. You'll go for coffee. You'll do a lot of, back then we called it Xeroxing. Move to LA on your own dime, and I'll start you at$95 a week. Plan B. Always have a plan B and C and D. Let's hear it for them. You never know about the twists and turns of life. So plan B for me, reluctantly, bitterly, I went to law school. The Vietnam War was still on. If I went to law school, I continued to get my 2S deferment from the draft.

57:51And I didn't want to be there, but that's where I was. And it turns out I don't think I could be doing what I'm doing today if I hadn't gone down that path that I didn't want to go down. because I got out of law school and I had no job prospects. I wasn't making any headway. And where did you go to law school, Michael? Indiana. Oh, cool. Stayed in Indiana for the whole time. Got my master's and my doctorate there. And so Nancy and I moved back to my parents' home. We were living in the bedroom that I grew up in. And we were there for months. I was working construction on my dad's crew while I was trying to go for interviews in New York.

58:33Nothing was happening. I remember the one day I just teared up. I said, I'm going to be working for my dad the rest of my life. This is going nowhere. And it was at that moment in time where I got a call from United Artists, which was a major motion picture studio, the only one based in New York City. And they said, we have a legal business affairs job open. the head of it saw your resume and would like you to come in. Now, what they didn't know is I had two resumes. One was just mentioning about legal and how I had done a legal paper, never mentioned I wrote comic books or anything. And the other one never mentioned I went to law school.

59:15So I was sending two resumes to each movie and TV company, one to legal and business affairs, and then one to production and programming. So I was getting two job interviews at the same company. I had this one thing in LA. It was my first job interview. I pull into CBS Television City in Hollywood and I have a meeting with the head of legal and business affairs. I'm in a three-piece suit with an attache case. I have a rented Ford Pinto. And I go running across the parking lot up the steps down the hall there was a receptionist there clearly from New York and I didn't know that they kept people waiting for meetings I had no idea so he kept me waiting for like 40 minutes before he would see me and I had my next interview with the head of programming at CBS and I was running right into it so I finally got up I had my interview with the lawyer and I look at my watch I've got six minutes before my meeting is supposed to begin with the programming person at CBS.

1:00:22I run down the hall past that woman, run down the steps, run across the parking lot, get in the back seat of the Ford Pinto, and I change my clothes. I put on jeans, a t-shirt, a Steven Spielberg-type baseball hat. I went rushing back in. I go up to the same receptionist. I said, I'm here for the programming meeting. And pardon my French, but she looks at me, she goes, you got balls, kid.

1:00:51A quick superhero costume change. There was no phone booth around. What could I do? So what year are we in? We are in 76. Okay. 1976. So it'll still be, am I correct, it's three more years until you... I finished law school, working for my dad, and then I get the call from United Artists. So I go up to UA, they offer me a job. I really don't want a legal business job, but it's all I got on the plate. So I said, okay, I said to Nancy, I'm gonna do this for no more than four years as if it's graduate school. At the end of four years, I'm gonna quit. I'm gonna try to learn everything I can and network like mad, but at the end of four years, I am not gonna be trapped into being a lawyer for the rest of my life.

1:01:41I am not gonna wind up doing people's wills and estates and taxes. I will, at the end of four years, I'll either be writing and producing movies, TV, and animation, or I'll be delivering pizza for Domino's, but I will not be trapping a lawyer. And that was, and plan B worked. Plan B worked. They put me in charge. I learned so much. They put me in charge of the legal business financial affairs of the first three Rocky movies. Wow. A beautiful movie, if you've never seen it called Black Stallion. Yes. Yeah. A movie that's on everybody's top 10 list of all time called Raging Bull. Wow. And for two and a half years of my life, a movie you've probably all heard of called Apocalypse Now.

1:02:26Oh my God. And that was a crisis every day of my life for two and a half years. So Charlie Sheen was here. Is that, is it, am I correct that at some point Martin Sheen was wandering naked through the streets of the Philippines in Apocalypse Now? Did that actually happen or no? Well, what happened, Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando were the two stars of the picture. And this was taking place in the Philippines. They build all these sets. They're ready to go. And Martin Sheen had a heart attack. So everybody had to stop and wait for him to recover. Then a typhoon comes through and destroys all the sets.

1:02:58All the sets have to be rebuilt. And that's just the beginning of that story. Wow. Charlie Sheen said two days ago that they began to call it Apocalypse Never. in terms of their family, and he was living in the Philippines. So all this amazingness, and what about these Batman rights? So I was coming up past my three-year mark at United Artists. I knew I had my next vow that I had made that I was going to quit by year four, so I went back to the president of DC Comics, the man who mentored me into DC when I was teaching the course. His name was Saul Harrison, a wonderful man. I said, Saul, I now have the credentials.

1:03:42I've worked at United Artists now for over three years. I know how to do this. I want to buy the rights to Batman and go out and make dark and serious Batman movies and show the world that Batman is not a pot-bellied, funny, pal, zap, wham guy. Saul looked at me. Did you ever see the poster for Home Alone? He looked at me like that. He goes, Michael, for God's sake, don't do this. he said don't you understand that since Batman went off the air in television the brand is as dead as a dodo he said nobody's interested in Batman anymore I said yeah but Saul nobody's ever seen a dark and serious comic book superhero movie before this is gonna be like a new form of entertainment he said is there any way I can talk you out of this crazy idea I said no so he said all right, come on in.

1:04:35And that began a six-month negotiation that gave me six months to find the right partner who had been through the loop on this, who was a legend in the movie business. He was my dad's age. His name was Benjamin Melnicker. And we raised money privately. And all the people who put up the money, none of them knew a thing about Batman. They put their money on me, not on Batman. And on October 3rd, 1979, we signed the piece of paper. I now bought the rights to Batman. I put it in my back pocket. And is it okay to ask, what did that cost? A lot. A whole hell of a lot. I'm still a kid in my 20s. How does a kid in his 20s buy the rights to Batman?

1:05:26I mean, today, impossible nobody could even envision or imagine it I flew out to Hollywood with Batman in my back pocket said this could be a piece of cake everybody's gonna see the chance for sequels and animation and toys and games I was turned down by every single studio in Hollywood they told me I was crazy they said this was the worst idea they ever heard they said you can't make serious comic book movies. You can't do dark superheroes. You can't make a movie out of an old TV series. Nobody's ever done that. And as a result, folks, from the day I bought the rights to Batman till I could finally get our first movie made took me 10 years.

1:06:13Wow. 10 years of rejection, 10 years where Nancy and I did not know how we were going to pay next week's bills, 10 years of figuring out how I keep a roof over our head and food on the table when I bought the rights to Batman Nancy was six months pregnant and we were building our first house and I just quit United Artists at the let's see it was two months after our son was born giving up our medical plan our dental plan my pension and my bonus. Oh my God. Because I had a great support system in my wife, Nancy, in my parents, in her parents and you can't do it alone. You've got to have a support system.

1:07:02People. And what do we have up here in the screen team?

1:07:11What's up there? Oh, I know her. That's Nancy? That's Nancy. That's amazing. Let's hear it for Nancy. Amazing. So if I can inject a couple of important things you need to know about my wife. We met first day freshman year at Indiana. She was not even unpacked when we went out for the first time. And for four years, everyone said, you don't fall in love with the first person you set your eyes on in college. It doesn't happen. We now have been married 52 years.

1:07:45Amazing. And yes, it's a Hollywood record. but here's what you need to know about my wife she does the important work in the family Nancy has an NGO a non-profit boots on the ground in Rwanda she has personally set up programs of literacy teaching kids English and critical thinking she has is right now financed and is building her ninth clean water project in Rwanda that's impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. She started a vision care program when she saw no kid in Rwanda had a pair of glasses and found that there was no eye care outside of the Capitol. She is now a consultant to the United Nations, and her first children's book was published recently by Macmillan.

1:08:34Wow. Holy Nancy. Edge is a small token of my gratitude. I'd like to, from my Calogie Christian Foundation make a donation of$25 ,000 to Nancy's NGO. Thank you so much. As a small token of the impact, and again, I'm very confident this is the beginning, not the end. Wow. For sure. So thank you. And the team will handle that. So you acquire the rights. It is 10 years of all this insanity. So how do you finally get a yes? Think about where you were 10 years ago. Imagine 10 years of no. And Nancy's hanging in there, and their family's hanging in there, and they're staying by Michael's side to pursue this dream, and they chose very, very wisely.

1:09:27So how do we get a yes? What happens? Two steps in this process. Number one, everything changed in 1986 when a young genius named Tim Burton came into our lives. Here was a young Disney animator and Warner Brothers said, we're setting up a screening of the fine cut of a movie this kid's done for us. You got to see it and tell us what you think. It was called Pee-wee's Big Adventure. And I came out and I said, I have never seen more creative combination of direction and art direction in my life. I'd love to meet him. And I had three lunches with Tim. by the end of the third lunch I knew this was the guy and here's how he made this all happen how he revolutionized Hollywood and the world culture's perception of comic books and superheroes and here's how he did it I always call it the big idea Tim Burton's big idea he said to me this one particular day if we are going to make the first ever serious comic book superhero movie this movie cannot be about Batman.

1:10:36And I just wanted to fall to pieces in the ground. I said, what are you talking about? He said, this movie has to be about Bruce Wayne. Ah. We have to show a portrayal of Bruce Wayne so driven, so obsessed to the point of being psychotic that people around the world who have never read a comic book before will say, oh yeah, that's a guy who would get dressed up as a bat and go fighting a guy who looks like the Joker. And Tim's corollary to that was from the opening frames of the movie, Gotham City had to become the third most important character of the film because audiences had to suspend their disbelief and believe in Gotham City before they could believe in all of this.

1:11:20So 86 was the turning point. But then I had a problem. I had no money left. I had been doing everything I could, trying everything. I was in debt and it looked like I could not make it any further. Now I talk about support systems. Nancy's father, who is a founder of the Cincinnati Eye Institute, flew out to New Jersey. He sat me down. He goes, you know, Michael, this is why you went to law school. So you would have something to fall back on if things didn't work out. He said, you've tried your hardest. That's the measure of a person's success. not what you've achieved but by how hard you've tried so you can't feel like you're a failure but now it's time that you gave up your dream and became a lawyer and took care of your family and I said I understand that and I'm prepared to do it it's just so frustrating because I'm so close you know while we're waiting for Batman I've been developing an animated series and I've got such interest in it and we're making such progress and he goes let me ask you a question.

1:12:26He said, how long do you think it would be before you have in your hands, not a deal, not a contract, not a promise, but a check for six figures? How long do you actually think that would take you? He said, and think carefully. I said, five months. He said, five months. I said, yes. He said, all right, I'm going to pay all your bills for the next five months. But at 6 p.m., five months from today, if you do not have a check for six figures in your hand, you agree you will have given it your best shot, and you will go be a lawyer and be content with that. I thanked him profusely. For the next five months, I was working 20-hour days all the time, and I was pushing on the animated series Pushing and all the guys who were working on it with me at Columbia Television and an animation studio called Deek, they knew about the pressure I was under.

1:13:25Turns out that they got all the contracts signed for it, they got this the commitment from the from the different broadcast networks and they held back the contract and the check until the last day. And sometime between noon and 3 p.m., a FedEx truck pulled up in front of our house. Come on. And there were the signed con... There were the signed contracts and a check for six figures. I was able to pay back my father-in-law and that gave me enough money to get to Batman. So sometimes you can't do it alone. You need a guardian angel. You need a support system. I had mine. Dude, like, again, look at this.

1:14:20Nobody else has had standing ovations. This is unbelievable.

1:14:30Crazy. How is this not a movie? How are you not a movie? Well, I am happy to announce. First of all, I wrote my memoir. It's called The Boy Who Loved Batman. Available. Stanley always said, Michael, get in the plug whenever you can. Available through barnesandknowable.com and Amazon. I also recorded the Audible book version of it, if you don't want to read. Yes. and I'm proud to tell you that Nederlander Worldwide which own about half the Broadway theaters theaters in London and all over they are turning my memoir into a Broadway play unbelievable dude we did a workshop we opened in Tampa Florida at the Strass Center for the Performing Arts for six weeks we got a standing ovation at every performance and they are now looking for an A-list star to play me and my wife, Nancy.

1:15:38And the goal is within the next year or so to open on Broadway followed by London. Unbelievable. Dude. Just the guy as the son of a stone nation from the Jersey Shore. Like this is what we got going on, yes. So, okay, so, and what was the animated series? Dinosaurs. Now you never heard of it. We did 65 half hours in syndicated TV. My son David when he was little there were two things he loved, outer space and dinosaurs. And I said gee that's just like me when I was growing up. In fact I think every kid loves outer space and dinosaurs. So I thought how can I combine dinosaurs and outer space and I have my best thinking, creative thinking when I'm shaving.

1:16:29So I was like, dinosaurs, outer space, dinosaurs, that is Dinah Saucers. And I got the name. And then I worked up backwards from there and created this TV series about dinosaurs from outer space who come to Earth, meet four kids, two of whom were my kids. And they take them around and show them what Earth and humans are like. And the evil Tyrannos follow. And It was a great series. We had a lot of fun. That's awesome. Awesome. So now, the first Batman movie, I saw it, and it's opening at the Tenplex in Paramus, New Jersey. No longer there. It was the first multiplex cinema that I ever experienced.

1:17:15And it was tears came down my face. I couldn't have been more thrilled and elated to experience all of this. Jack Nicholson as the Joker, the depth of it, people actually died. People had chemicals being thrown in faces and dropped into vats and all sorts of incredible things. How did you feel about the movie? when the movie was completed there was a special screening for a group of us and my partner ben turned to me we had to go into the theater through heavy velour black curtains and he stopped me he goes michael you're going to go through these curtains right now you're going to come out two hours later and your life is going to be changed and he was right about that.

1:18:12It changed the course of my whole life. What I thought would be a mission, a job, turned into a career and then basically my entire life. I want to tell you about when we opened. Right before we opened, I had a special premier screening for family and friends in New York City. And I got to speak for about 10 minutes or so before then. When I was in seventh and eighth grades at Ocean Township School, I had two English teachers, Mrs. Stiller and then Mrs. Friedman. It was Mrs. Stiller in seventh grade who told me I had a creative ability and that I needed to believe in myself as a creative writer.

1:18:55And she thought that I had the ability that I could use this as an adult in my work. And then she passed me off to her sister-in-law Mrs. Friedman who had a red pen. She was the roughest toughest teacher you could imagine. At the end of the first day of English in eighth grade she asked me to stay and I went up to her desk and she said Michael Mrs. Stiller told me about you and she showed me your portfolio of your creative work. I think she's right and I have very high standards in this class, but if you really truly want to become a creative writer, it's more than just having ideas, creative ideas, anybody can have creative ideas.

1:19:46You would need to become a master of your craft of writing. If you are willing, I am going to then hold you to higher standard than anybody else I am going to be as tough as possible when you're gonna learn vocabulary you're gonna read so much you're gonna learn how to diagram sentences and understand structure and she was as tough as nails for me so the night of Batman premiere I found mrs. stiller mrs. Friedman and I I think that Mrs. Friedman was in Florida. I can't remember where Mrs. Stiller was, but I brought them up, and I sent a limousine to bring them to my premiere. And as I spoke, I said, for those of you who don't believe there are superheroes in real life, you've never met a great teacher.

1:20:43I said, there would be no Batman here tonight. There would be nothing here tonight if it wasn't for two great teachers that changed my life. And I said, now, if you ask them, they will say they've gotten everything they could want out of life from teaching their generation of students. I said, but there's one thing I know they've never gotten, and that's a standing ovation. And they got a standing ovation that night. Dude. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

1:21:20Dude. Crazy. The power of story, emotional, energetic, and energetic transference. Incredible. And that's what actualizers are. He was consulted. He was trained. He was coach. And what was the word that they told him he had to have and achieve? Say it. One more time. That's our word. A whole bunch more movies. and what are your rights, just so that the room knows, and how would they appropriately describe your relationship to Batman in the cinematic world? I'm his godfather.

1:22:08So I'll tell you, I'll sum it up in a story. We were down to, Ben Melnicker and I were down to pitching to the final studio. All studios had rejected it. Columbia was the last studio. So we go in to pitch Columbia, and it's this dapper-dressed, silver-haired guy. He'd been at the studio for years and years and years, and I pitched my heart out for a dark and serious Batman. And at the end of it, he turns to me and Ben, and he goes, Michael, you're out of your mind. Batman will never be a successful movie because our movie, Annie, has not done well. I said, wait a minute. Are you talking about the little red-headed girl from Broadway that sings the song Tomorrow?

1:22:57He says, yeah. I go, well, what does that have to do with Batman? Oh, come on, Michael. They're both out of the funny pages. Nobody wants to pay money to see a cartoon character walk and talk. Oh, my God. and with that he then said look I'll tell you what I will consider making a Batman movie but it's got to be that pot-bellied funny pow zap wham guy because that's all audiences will remember and love and I looked at him and I said no and with that he brought his chair leaned into me and he said son when people call me son I know I'm in trouble son better to have a movie made than no movie at all.

1:23:40And I said, no. That was the end of the meeting. We're now on a park bench sitting on the lot of the studio. My head is down. And Ben's sitting next to me and he goes, you know, Michael, don't you think it was ironic that our last no came from you? He said, you know what that makes you? I said, I know, Ben, I'm an idiot. He says, oh, no. you have this vision for Batman that you believe respects the integrity of his creators. You defend Batman. You are protecting Batman. You are Batman's Batman. Wow. And that's my role. Wow. And to get the plug in, that's the name of volume two of my memoir. So what happens?

1:24:36how does that how do you find the actual making of the movie? Who says yes? Ben said you know I just got word that Casablanca Records which were the kings of disco back in the day Donna Summer and all of those they just got an influx of money from Polygram in Europe and they're going to open up a film division the guy in charge of it he said Ben knew from 1969 he said he's much younger than all of the studio people we've pitched to. He's a lot more hip. He may get it. So he got Peter Guber on the phone at Casablanca Records, and he put me on the phone, and I pitched it over the phone from New York.

1:25:17And Peter said, I love this idea. Let me just pause for a quick sec. So Peter Guber, you guys have ever heard of Tony Robbins Platinum Partnership? Peter Guber is the inspiration for Tony Robbins Platinum Partnership. Peter Guber became great friends with Tony Robbins and invited him into a group that they called the Scorpions, and they traveled and went places together and invited Tony in. He felt like he didn't belong. He was 32 at the time when he was first invited, and he had to put up like$30 ,000 for the trip, and they were going all over Asia, flying private, and that was the genesis of the concept of Platinum Partnership, and Tony and Peter Gruber are still incredibly great friends to this day.

1:26:03They own interest in professional sports teams together, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, Peter Gruber, back to you, please. So it was Peter and his partner, Neil Bogart. And we went out and did an official pitch in front of them. And they said, look, we'll make this. We have an output deal now. We're going to make movies through Universal. It'll be a Universal picture. And then you can imagine what happened. Casablanca faded away. Polygram Pictures came into play. There was another company for a second and a half called the Boardwalk Company. Then there was Universal, then Filmways, then 20th Century Fox.

1:26:42Then finally Warner Brothers came into the picture as everybody else kind of disappeared. But it was a 10-year process. Unbelievable. So then the original Batman movie is a massive success, critically acclaimed. jackson the joker um and then there was a number of other movies um that we worked through and that danny devito's the penguin and we have val kilmer and george clooney as batman arnold schwarzenegger as mr freeze um you know the the um jim carrey's the riddler so we have that sequencing of movies um if we could and because we're we are finally running a little bit short on time how how does that all sort of transpire?

1:27:28What does that mean to you? And then we'll jump into Christopher Nolan and the next step in the process. But what does that, those years mean and look like? And how is that all for you, Michael? All right. Well, I'll start out with, it was Memorial Day weekend of 1980. And I'm in New York getting ready to get on the bus back home to New Jersey. I got the afternoon paper, The Post. I open it up to the movie section. And there I see two big movies are premiering, The Empire Strikes Back and another movie, a horror movie called The Shining. And I see this picture of Jack Nicholson for the first time.

1:28:10You know, the here's Johnny shot, where he's like peering maniacally around a corner. I go, oh my God, this is the only actor who could play the Joker. I tore the picture out. When I got home, I ran to my desk. I took white out and I whited out Jack's face. I took a red pen and I did his lips. I did a magic marker. I did his hair. And that's what I showed to everyone connected to Batman. I said, Nicholson, he's the only one who could play the Joker. That's unbelievable. When he was hired, it was the greatest day of my career to that point. Absolutely amazing. And for those that don't know, the Riddler, I mean, I'm sorry, the Joker is a deeply, deeply disturbed villain.

1:28:53and the complexity of his relationship with Batman, which is told in a litany of different ways over the course of the comics and movies, and Michael can speak into this a thousand times more masked with an eye, but in the simplest essence, there is this incredible interdependence where the Joker loves Batman, despises Batman, needs Batman, tells Batman this continuously, and Batman has this element of integrity and humanity at the foundational core that prevents him from ever killing the Joker. And there's this dance that goes on into eternity of the Joker continuing to come back and back and back and back again.

1:29:34And this dance continues forever. And so what I'm hearing you say, Michael, is that Jack Nicholson in this amazing moment of The Shining, which my dad took me to see at 10 years old. My dad made a lot of very poor movie decisions. He took me to see Count Yorga when I was three. In the movies, I thought it was child appropriate. And recently, my dad was in the hospital for Fun Energy. I asked our act eye, is Count Yorga appropriate for a three-year-old? And the first sentence was, Count Yorga is completely and totally inappropriate for a three-year-old. It was the headline sentence. But what I'm hearing you say is Jack Nicholson, in this sense of derangement of the character in The Shining, could not have been, no other human in acting could possibly have embodied the derangement of the Joker like that.

1:30:22Am I hearing you correctly? Yeah, and I mentioned the Joker specifically. First of all, in 1989-90, the Motion Picture Academy was mostly a bunch of well-to-do, white-haired white guys who were like the dean at Indiana that I pitched to, looking down their noses at comic books. There is no way back then the Academy would vote for Jack Nicholson in a comic book movie as best actor. He should have. Had he been in it in more recent times, he would have won the Oscar for that. When Chris Nolan came along, Heath Ledger plays the Joker. Heath Ledger wins the Oscar for it. Then when Todd Phillips comes along and does Joker, Joaquin Phoenix wins the Oscar for Joker.

1:31:13We really should have had three times where actors won the Oscar for Joker. But that's the bridge for me from one filmmaker to another filmmaker to another filmmaker. Unbelievable. And so that run then, because we're going to show a couple clips from the, we saw the surfing and pow, whap, bam. Then we'll take a look at The Dark Knight in a minute. But just that period of the, which, by the way, I love all those movies. Because every time Batman's on the screen, I love him. I know some love some of those movies more than others. Love them. But just for you, if we can encapsulate that grouping of the Danny DeVito Penguin version, Mr.

1:31:59Freeze, Riddler as Jim Carrey, what did that period mean to you and to Batman? To me, as a comic book geek, these movies represent different eras of the comic book version of Batman. Tim Burton's Batman was really the Batman of 1939 into 1940, before Robin. And it was much darker, and he captured that really well. When you look at what Dear Joel Schumacher did with Batman Forever, it was more the Batman of the late 40s and into the 50s. Batman and Robin punting their way against a rogues gallery of supervillains, hopping on giant typewriter keys, and they captured that era. The Clooney thing was the TV show Redux.

1:32:51I'm hearing your deep abiding love for it. And with Val Kilmer, I thought he was more like the Batman of the comic books of the 1990s. He was a deeply mysterious and dark romantic version of Bruce Wayne. And I thought very effective. To me, it evoked Frank Langella's Dracula, which he did on Broadway and in a film that showed that villainy could be romanticized and be attractive. Yeah. I saw Frank Langella as Dracula at Montclair State University at one point. It was unbelievable. Amazing. Really great. A Bayonne boy, by the way, Frank Langella. Amazing. can we hit Bane Batman in their initial interaction in the Dark Knight Rises can we hit that team

1:33:45oh yes I was wondering what would break first

1:33:53your spirit

1:33:59All your money!

1:34:19That is not shark repellent on a surf wave and pow, web, bam. Thank you. Well, as Bane said,

1:34:36So when this happened, and just in all, I loved all the Batman movies prior, and I still ached for this. And this is the third of the trilogy, and as Michael and I were chatting in the green room, he said, this is really one movie in three acts.

1:35:01Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises. And if you have never seen Batman Begins, and you only relate to the Dark Knight as this incredible movie, and there's other movies around that time, it's one story. And Batman Begins contextualizes the Dark Knight and the Dark Knight Rises, the Dark Knight Rises completes the Dark Knight, and these are just absolutely masterful. And I think where critics get it wrong sometimes, and these were all critically acclaimed for sure, but is to, and people following the words of critics is just so often missing the point of things. And these movies were received masterfully, but to compare one to the other, I think it's just a mistake.

1:35:51It's just one thing, right, is what it is. and so the completion Dark Knight Rises Batman Begins amazing and when I saw Batman Begins the level of gratitude I had Michael and everyone for this is who I knew Batman to be and I loved the 1989 Batman with Jack Nicholson I mean loved and I loved all those movies but this is from my heart, my soul, my being this is Batman yeah and so thank you Michael for that from my heart I appreciate that Sean let me mention two things about Christopher Nolan's Batman movies number one is when Chris came aboard he had to restore the darkness and dignity to Batman after Batman and Robin and he went about it just like Tim Burton had to but 180 degrees different he was not going to build Gotham City we actually built five square city blocks of Gotham City on the back lot of Pinewood Studios.

1:36:52He was not going to do that. He wanted to make this movie feel real. He wanted to convince you that Batman could be real today. The Joker could be real today. And he had about five challenges to try to overcome. So number one, how do you prove that Gotham City could be real? He didn't shoot it in New York, where as soon as you see Central Park or the Statue of Liberty, you go, oh, it's New York, and it breaks your sense of disbelief. So he chose Chicago. You take two buildings out of the skyline of Chicago and people around the world cannot identify the city. And you still have Lower Wacker Drive and a lot of interesting places where I watched him actually flip a semi-truck.

1:37:37So he made Gotham City real. Then he had to make you believe Bruce Wayne could be real today. A young man struggling, post-traumatic stress syndrome, on a journey of personal discovery, almost like Lost Horizon. And through the casting of Christian Bale made us all believe that that could really happen to a person today. Then he had to make you believe the Joker could be real. And this was his testament to 9-11 and the aftermath of 9-11. And the Joker was conceived as a modern-day terrorist, someone who places no value whatsoever on human life and you fear him he was scary and he was real unfortunately the last thing which was the biggest challenge was how is he going to convince all of you all this tech all these gadgets could be real that was a big challenge he hired morgan freeman to tell you it was real and if morgan freeman says something's true by god it's true yes amazing for those who haven't seen that's lucius fox is the character and he works in wayne enterprises and they were developing so much of this for um military contracting companies and the military and then it went into a side project and it was revived by lucius fox as he began to sense it was requested by bruce wayne who went away and in the movie um in the story Batman, Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale as playing Bruce Wayne loses himself and he goes traveling around the world and to find his heart his soul, his being he's robbing, stealing he's trying to learn what criminals look like and decide what he's going to be he finds this group called the League of Shadows and they take him in to train him to recreate him to channel this energy but then they were going to violate the very principle that Batman wouldn't and they killed the bad.

1:39:46They killed who they decided were bad. And they were judge, jury, executioner and these people who trained and developed Bruce Wayne, the League of Shadows, asked him in the final step to kill someone who had stolen.

1:40:06And in front of all of the people, that had made him what he had become, he had to now fight them. And that is why Batman Begins is such an unbelievable movie, film, story, and it's your story. It's what we're doing here. At least you can choose to decide that because I am Batman. That's Batman. You're Batman. Or Wonder Woman or any of these characters if Wonder Woman has some superpowers. This is real if you decided this. And the breaking of the back by Bane, that's your fear of picking up the phone. That's the person who mocks you and says, you think you know what you're talking about? That's what Michael faced over and over.

1:41:00That's why you stood. Because he's living, the living embodiment of Bruce Wayne into Batman. Integrity and mastery. He was just a kid from Jersey who had masterful teachers who gave him, we say this, Michael, we teach this. This is not made for you today. You just are bringing forward what we teach all the time. They've heard me say these things a thousand times. I'm not saying it through the prism of you as example. Influence is the only human attainable superpower. That's his superpower. That's your superpower. And then self-mastery comes in when we face the Joker, face Bane, most often inside of our own head.

1:41:53And then we create the fiction that the other person saying no to you is actually trying to kill you and destroy you and break your back, which is a complete joke and lie. And our work here is to deal with truth. truth. And what I just spoke is the truth. And the truth is, it's all a fiction. That's not the fiction. The crap we make up about why we don't send out 370 letters, when it could take us two hours or pick up the phone and cause yes with people, and the right yeses, that's the truth. If you feel that truth in your heart, and you see the possibility available for you, say yes. brother thank you for that and then if we could let's go with broken back your back is broken whether that's your bank account your heart your vision possibility what people say to you so here lies you buried in your worst nightmare you're broken you're lying there you've tried to climb out You try to escape and you can't.

1:43:08And you can't. And then you have your next actualizer who tells you, you need to make the climb. Like the child did. Without the rope. So you can find fear again. Because you need fear to drive you. and not fear of what's in front of you, but fear of that final day on your deathbed and having stood and sat and stood and sat in this room and heard this and heard this and heard it all. And I promise you and I want this for you. If you do not, this day, may it haunt you on your deathbed. May you have that blessing. of remembering this moment and to fear that every day from this day forward. And let's see how Bruce Wayne handled it.

1:44:10Please, thank.

1:44:30Come on. Come on. Come on. So. Come on. Durant. So. Oh!

1:44:55Wow! Ok,

1:45:14then

1:45:44You rose from Michael. because you experienced him doing that in his life story. The hopeless in this prison, this hell, are all the humans on earth who suffer blind, unable to see, and are seeking you to light their way as Michael has lit the way here today. and when you rise, all of these people would have laughed and mocked and laughed and mocked and they roared and cheered as we always do for the rise. You rose and cheered, but with great respect, almost all of you would have laughed at Michael in 1971 and 5 and 9 and 80 and 82 and 84 and 86, and the same people who laugh at you laughed at him and laughed at me.

1:46:50The difference is, like Bruce Wayne, Michael Rose, and you can too, whether it's in money, scaling, or impact overall that you chose the back right corner on day one. if you are recommitted to that true say us. And sir, when you watch that, how does that feel for you and what's present, please? It's so powerful. You know, over the years, there's one scene from Dark Knight that people keep talking about and asking me about and commenting on, telling me how this particular scene impacted them. It's a scene that takes place on a ship. and people are on the ship, and they are given a moral choice.

1:47:40Do they press this button and blow up the other ship, filled with people, in order to save themselves, or do they not? And what people tell me is when this scene comes up, and what is it? It's about what do you do when you have to make a moral choice and your choices are bad and worse? and they tell me in the darkness of the movie theater by themselves no matter who they were with or who they were around they had to come to terms and think what they would do in that situation would they press that button or would they not and I've had people approach me at screenings and all literally with tears in their eyes about the impact that that had on them introspectively.

1:48:30And for a comic book superhero movie to have that kind of thematic heft was really, really amazing.

1:48:41And what I appreciate, Michael, for me personally, most about that scene, because one person posted about Charlie Sheen being here and he shouldn't be here and what's he doing here and all these terrible things did. And in that scene, it is the law enforcement people, the prison guards, the warden that wants to, or the head of the prisoners, that wants to blow up the other ship of the prisoners. and it is the prisoner and the guy struggling who takes it from him and says

1:49:24I'll do what you can't and what he thinks is the guy's going to press the button to blow up the other ship this guy's a murderer a prisoner that's transporting his prisoners and he takes it and he throws it overboard to make sure it doesn't happen and what that means to me is the same conversation we had but for the grace of god go i who are we to judge and because someone has made a mistake just like we've all made mistakes it does not mean that they are still not heroic and capable of heroism so i also thank you for that moment and that unbelievable power and by the way just for fun i wasn't lying when i said i was a big fan I'd like to offer one last story to you at the time of Dark Knight I got a call from a colonel at West Point and he said Mr.

1:50:23Usland every year the cadets of West Point have a cadets choice award that they award to the one who they feel most embodies the code of honor of West Point this year they elected the Dark Knight Batman and they said would you possibly consider coming up here accepting the award and speaking to our cadets wow so I said absolutely I would be honored to do that so Nancy and I went up there and it was magnificent and they said we're going to do this at lunchtime and it's 4 ,500 cadets standing at attention at their tables they bring me into this meeting hall or eating hall that was like a set from Harry Potter.

1:51:09The Vikings could have built this. It was stone coming to a V with a stone balcony and vaulted ceilings and flags. It was incredible. So as we're going up to the top for this, I said, you know, you never told me how long you'd like me to speak. Would you like a half hour? Do you want 45 minutes? Should it be Q &A? And he said, oh, I'm sorry. He goes, our lunchtime here is only 15 minutes, so we'd like you to speak for about two minutes. And, oh, we're on.

1:51:42And they present me with this award, which was amazing, and they hand me the microphone. And I'm looking out over 4 ,500 cadets standing at attention. And I just said, cadets of West Point, when Bruce Wayne was a boy, he saw his parents murdered before his eyes on a concrete altar of blood. At that moment in time, he sacrificed his childhood and made a vow. He promised that he would get the bad guy who did this, that he would get all the bad guys, even if he had to walk through hell for the rest of his life in order to honor that commitment. I said, in doing so, he became an urban warrior. He became a legend.

1:52:34He became a dark knight. I said, cadets of West Point, you are Batman. And at that moment in time, there erupted applause and yelps, and they were on the chairs and it was like incredible and it went on for a couple of minutes and it was just this amazing amazing moment but it was punctuated one week later when I opened my mail and I get a letter from a woman and it went something like this dear Mr. Usland you don't know I am the mother of one of the cadets that you spoke to last week at West Point. In May, our kids are all going to Afghanistan and Iraq. This is serious business for our families.

1:53:28I don't know if you understand what you and Batman have done here, but right now, our kids are walking across campus, high-fiving each other, doing chest bumps with each other, going, I am Batman. You are Batman. She said, what you've done is give them a calling card. And in the years to come, when they once again may encounter each other on some foreign battlefield, this will be their calling card. And I can't thank you enough for that. And if Batman and my journey have done nothing else, that for me meant everything. Let's hear from Michael.

1:54:15One more time. Let's hear it for Michael Uslan.

1:54:25And I want to thank you.

1:54:30Let us hear it for Mr. Michael Uslan.

1:54:38if this was remarkable for you say yes remarkable, masterful impactful, say yes and last thing I'll say Michael is people will die for their identity and thank you for doing that for our nation thank you to all the people in this room and thank you for giving

1:55:06Batman, his truest identity, and may this last forever. And I thank you, Michael.

1:55:17Thank you. This is what Jersey produces right here.