Holy Publicity! The Press Goes Batty Over a Sneak Peak

“Batman,” in its final weeks of shooting, finally opened its set at the Pinewood Studios in London! “The opportunity arose--post-holidays,” explained a Warner Bros. spokesman.

So Newsweek goes Batty in its latest issue--and Batpieces are upcoming in Rolling Stone, Premiere and the N.Y. Times Magazine. The fanzine Starlog was also granted a visit--but not Cinefantastique, still snubbed by Warner Bros. since publishing a photo from “The Twilight Zone” tragedy back in 1982.

But CFQ editor-publisher Frederick S. Clarke said the magazine “will definitely be writing about that Batman ‘muscle suit’--which is going to be pretty controversial among the fans.”

KABC’s Gary Franklin called us with a “sneak peak” of his Battrip--which found him and his crew nearly getting tossed off the set by a studio guard accompanied by a “big, black snarling dog.” (Also along: Gary’s daughter, Daryle, 24, who got work on the film as an extra.)

Neither Jack Nicholson (The Joker) nor Michael Keaton (Batman) would talk for his cameras. “But at least Jack smiled and yelled back at me when I saw him on the set,” Franklin related. “Mr. Keaton didn’t say anything. At least I assume it was Keaton in that costume. The way it’s designed, you can’t tell who’s in it.”

Meanwhile, Warners continues to exclude the British press.

“There’s absolutely no reason for us to have courted the British press at this time,” said Julian Senior, Warners’ European marketing veep, explaining that “Batman” won’t open in England until Christmas. (It opens here this summer.)

Nonetheless, free-lance photographer Mark Anderson hid in scaffolding and snapped Keaton and Nicholson at work. Anderson’s fuzzy photo ran in the center spread of the London Sun. The paper also ran an official Warners’ pic of The Joker without studio authorization; Warners got a temporary injunction against further use of the photo.

Also in the Sun: An eyebrow-raising story that claimed the story line included “machine gun massacres of thousands of women and children.”

Said Senior: “Absolute rubbish!”