Joel Schumacher is in many ways responsible for my career. Any power Ain't It Cool News had (and at one time it was substantial) is due to Schumacher. It was just some random website during a time when the internet was still new and weird and nobody understood it.

Batman and Robin was the big geek property and AICN ran some early bad buzz word of mouth on it. The movie's terrible and that's why it underperformed, but at the time Schumacher said this little website run by dorks in Austin, TX was responsible for its bad box office.

And over night AICN became the Hollywood boogeyman, pulling the veil back on aspects of the industry they didn't want you to see. The studios were scared of the site, filmmakers for the most part turned to it in droves and a new age of movie reporting was born.

That kind of site doesn't really exist anymore and I don't think it can, but in the wild west days of the internet Joel Schumacher gave us the greatest gift he could have. In later years he was very kind to the site when he could have held a grudge.

Despite all that, I've always loved how Schumacher swung big. He had some massive whiffs, but when he connected he gave us great films. The Lost Boys, Falling Down, Phone Booth, Tigerland and (for me) the creeping dread of 8MM will last a very long time.