A recent report has revealed a Batman movie that never made it into production, but sounds as if it would emulate much of what is produced on the superhero today.

The movie, 'Batman: Unchained,' was to be directed by Joel Schumacher, the man that some blame for the near destruction of the superhero's film franchise in 1997. Fans will recognize the name to be the one behind 'Batman and Robin' starring George Clooney.

Due to the unpopularity of that movie, Schumacher never got the green light to go forward with this 'dark and gritty' project, which may or may not have made reparations for the previous movie.

Mark Protosevich, the writer, and Schumacher revealed this synopsis to THR. It reads:

"Its two villains had each hated a different aspect of Batman. The brilliant (and satanic) Prof. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow had a personal vendetta against Bruce Wayne, while Harley Quinn despised Bruce's alter ego.

"Harley, a toymaker whom Protosevich describes as "sadistic in a mischievous, fun sense," learns that her true father was The Joker. This sets her on a path of vengeance against Batman for taking him away in the 1989 film. Eventually, Crane learns Batman's secret identity and teams up with Harley to drive him insane and have him sent to Arkham Asylum.

"The script culminates with an ambitious, all-star sequence that would have seen a hallucinating Batman face the demons of his past, where he is put on trial by the franchise's previous villains."

The cast would have been made up of Nicolas Cage as the Scarecrow, and actors from previous Batman films such as Danny DeVito as The Penguin, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, Jim Carrey as The Riddler, and Jack Nicholson as Joker.

"A few days later, I'm getting a call from Joel, whose main comment was that I had written maybe the most expensive movie ever made. Then I remember I never heard from the executive at Warner Bros. I called many times, never got any kind of response," says Protosevich. "This got into a period of weeks and then a month, and my agent pestering Warners. And the next thing I knew, they were pulling the plug on the whole project. They were going to wait and see what they were going to do with Batman. The Joel Schumacher-driven Batman train was taken off the rails."