Director Joel Schumacher has died after a year-long battle with cancer, The Wrap has confirmed. He was 80.
The out film director started his career in the fashion industry, becoming good friends with Halston, but Schumacher eventually moved to Los Angeles and started working in film. His first theatrical film was 1981’s The Incredible Shrinking Woman, starring Lily Tomlin. He later found success with projects like St. Elmo’s Fire, The Lost Boys, and The Client.
Schumacher also struck box office gold with Batman Forever in 1995, but his campy follow-up, Batman & Robin, was a critical bust, with many claiming he killed the Batman film franchise.

In an enlightening 2019 interview with Vulture, Schumacher talked at length about growing up gay in New York City in the 1950s, and his drug-fueled “lost” summers out on Fire Island. He also spoke about allegedly having sex with up to 20,000 people, and how living through the AIDS crisis made gay men look at sex differently:
A friend who was not promiscuous was the first person I knew that had it. I think he was diagnosed in ’83. And I was extremely promiscuous, so I thought, “If he has it, I must have it quadrupled.” I went to get tested. I was sure I had it, I was planning my death. In those days, the test had to be done by the Centers for Disease Control. So it was sent away, and it took three weeks or more until you got the answer. When the doctor called me and said, “No, everything’s fine, it’s clean, Joel,” I went and got tested again.
“I used condoms,” he explained, “but condoms broke. And there was a lot of drug taking, a lot going on then. It was a way to deal with the loss, I think, of so many people I loved, or liked, or had affection for, or admired.”
Schumacher’s later credits include Tigerland, Phone Booth, The Phantom of the Opera, and two episodes of House of Cards in 2013. But it was Batman & Robin that made an impact on a entire generation of young gay kids.
There was an outpouring of love for Schumacher online from queer people who thanked him for the camp classic, and specifically Chris O’Donnell’s muscular bat-suit:
Thank you for everything, Joel Schumacher. pic.twitter.com/hBK1By02Jo
— Louis Peitzman (@LouisPeitzman) June 22, 2020
RIP Joel Schumacher.
Here's @cameronesposito singing the praises of his campy, gay Batman movies in the "Action Heroes" episode of Why We Love: pic.twitter.com/QH1LfDfxHO— Cameron Scheetz (@cameronscheetz) June 22, 2020
RIP, Joel Schumacher. The gays salute you. pic.twitter.com/lziDRSAtry
— JP Larocque (@jplarocque) June 22, 2020
Millennial Gay Starter Kit: pic.twitter.com/EwsmVLzc9j
— JP Larocque (@jplarocque) June 22, 2020
Chris O’Donnell in that Robin costume was one of THE gay awakenings.
Thanks, Joel Schumacher
— Ian Carlos (@ianxcarlos) June 22, 2020
beyond his great contributions to cinema, Joel Schumacher is the reason I'm gay. pic.twitter.com/FjagYweQ6o
— It’s-a Tyler Dinucci (@TylerDinucci) June 22, 2020
Thank you Joel Schumacher for gifting us with this gay icon pic.twitter.com/SN5cJ73G1G
— Dan ️ (@DeeLon17) June 22, 2020
One of Joel Schumacher’s more undervalued contributions to film: the superhero that made me and so many other kids realize we were gay. pic.twitter.com/hrS3cELOlp
— Cole. (@losangelesbey) June 22, 2020
would like to personally thank joel schumacher for everything he did for the gay kids of the 90s pic.twitter.com/C5xAntqGTc
— J Λ M Ξ S (@jamesglynn) June 22, 2020
Thanks for making Batman and Robin hot for gay teens who still didn't have access to porn in the 90s, Joel Schumacher. #RIP pic.twitter.com/Y1PAGWtyf2
— Ronaldo Trancoso Jr (@ronaldotrancoso) June 22, 2020
RIP Joel Schumacher. This scene didn't make me gay but it did confirm a lot of things. https://t.co/huBKo8qaPX
— Gay Jonah Jameson (@markrennie) June 22, 2020
rip to joel schumacher. ty for the significant work you did turning me gay pic.twitter.com/sDoj9BZ7AI
— David Mack (@davidmackau) June 22, 2020
Rest in peace, Joel.