Michael Keaton was ready to film Batman in late 1988 opposite his female lead, Sean Young, but then that quickly changed just days before filming.
Young, who had starred in Blade Runner as the female lead opposite Harrison Ford, was cast in the role of Vicki Vale and spent five weeks in pre-production. Shortly before filming began, Young was practicing a hobby of hers, which led to a minor accident that changed the course of her career.
Robert Wuhl, who played reporter Alexander Knox in the film, explains in the Shadows of the Bat documentary series, “Vicki Vale was originally Sean Yong. It wasn’t Kim Basinger.”
Chris Kenny, co-producer, also explained in the documentary, “Sean Young was there. She was there for four or five weeks of pre-production and Sean wanted to go practice her horse riding but fell off and we were about a week away from shooting.”
Surprisingly, Sean Young appears in the documentary just to offer her thoughts on what happened. Looking back on her missed opportunity, it’s almost heartbreaking to hear her outlook, though she seems more than mature in her thought-process.
She says in the documentary about her falling off the horse and breaking her arm, “I couldn’t hang on. I just couldn’t hang on and there’s kind of a poetic symbolism about that.”
She further explains how her career likely changed from the accident:
“In a way, I look back at that particular time in my life and I go, ‘Wow, I wish I’d been able to hang on to that horse.’ I wish I’d been able to do that because then the turning point in my particular career I would’ve been able to stay on the film, I would’ve been in a big box office hit, I would’ve been able to go on to other big box office hits and then, you know, that kind of domino effect would have occurred in my career. That was the turning point in my career where that didn’t happen.”
Young ended up having other strange things happen in her career, which I’ll explain in a moment.
After her accident, though, Batman producers were suddenly forced to very quickly find a new actress for the role. Chris Kenny said, “At the time it was kind of a panic to recast her.”
Director Tim Burton, the producers, and the studio got together on a phone call to discuss who should play Vicki Vale. However, there were very limited options because few actresses were fully available and ready to journey to London in a day or two and almost immediately start filming.
It turns out that Kim Basigner was available and was willing. Basinger, a model who had earned some acclaim in Hollywood as an actress, partly thanks to Robert Benson’s 1987 film Nadine, probably didn’t realize that she was about to co-star in the highest-grossing film of her acting career.
In the documentary, Basinger is extremely gracious and speaks of how quickly she darted to London but also notes that, upon arriving on set, she thought to herself that it wasn’t just a film, “it was an experience.”
The following year, Sean Young was cast opposite Warren Beatty in Dick Tracy, but she was dismissed. Why? The excuse given was that she was not maternal enough for the role. Why award it to her then? In 2021, Young told The Daily Beast that it was because Beatty made sexual advances towards her that she was not responsive to. Soon after, she was fired. Warren Beatty denied the claims.
Young pursued the role for Catwoman in the 1992 Batman sequel, Batman Returns, by going on the Joan Rivers Show dressed up as Catwoman. It was apparently an attempt to earn the attention of Burton as a way to campaign for the role, but Michelle Pfeiffer was chosen instead.
Young starred in the 1992 Miramax film Love Crimes, about an assistant district attorney who goes after a sexual predator. After the film, Young claims that Miramax co-founder Harvey Weinstein exposed himself to her. Young did not respond favorably to Weinstein, nor should she have. Weinstein denies the claims. She never worked with Miramax again, and said her career trajectory went into a downward spiral after not being receptive to Weinstein’s alleged sexual advances.
Sean Young’s career is filled with frustrations, most of which — outside of Batman — are due to the decisions and actions of others.