Batman Returns
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50 free Batman Returns trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Batman Returns is one of the strangest blockbusters ever released: a Christmas film about lonely people in costumes, sold to children and made by a director who had been given the run of Gotham. Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman and Danny DeVito's Penguin remain two of the most memorable villains in any superhero film. This quiz covers the whole film. Expect questions on the plot and its villains, on how Catwoman was cast, trained and costumed, on the sets, creatures and music, on the row the film caused when it opened, and on the Sega and Nintendo games that followed it. It is multiple choice, with the answer and a short explanation after every question. The early questions suit anyone who remembers the film; the later ones are for fans who know what happened behind the camera.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor plays Max Shreck, the corrupt tycoon named after a silent-film star, in Batman Returns?
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken based Shreck on old-school moguls such as Samuel Goldwyn. The character was invented for the film to show that true villains do not always wear costumes.
Q 02A Catwoman film planned for Michelle Pfeiffer after Batman Returns finally arrived in 2004 starring which actress?
Halle Berry
Halle Berry took the lead after a decade of delays, playing a new character called Patience Phillips. A photograph of Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle appears in the film among earlier Catwomen.
Q 03Which fast-food chain angered parents by promoting the dark Batman Returns to children with toy tie-ins?
McDonald's
McDonald's had dressed thousands of its restaurants as Gotham City for the film. After the backlash it began insisting on long advance previews before agreeing to promote a movie.
Q 04What shape is the amphibious vehicle that Danny DeVito's Penguin rides through the sewers and streets in Batman Returns?
A giant rubber duck
A giant rubber duck carries the Penguin around the sewers and the city. The Super Nintendo game of the film makes wrecking the Duck Vehicle part of its final boss fight.
Q 05Which star of the 1989 Batman persuaded his hesitant friend Danny DeVito to accept the Penguin role in Batman Returns?
Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson, the Joker of the first film, talked his close friend into the part. He was absent from the sequel himself, so the studio sold it on three characters instead of one.
Q 06Michael Keaton returned to his Batman Returns version of Bruce Wayne three decades later in which 2023 superhero film?
The Flash
The Flash brought Keaton's Batman back through a multiverse story. He had also shot scenes in the role for Batgirl, a film the studio cancelled before anyone saw it.
Q 07Which animal, startled by Danny DeVito in full Penguin costume, leapt at him during a sewer scene in Batman Returns?
A monkey
A monkey was meant to carry a note to the Penguin, with handlers guiding it from above and below. When it saw DeVito in full costume it lunged at him, and his padding took the blow.
Q 08Which actress was first cast as Catwoman in Batman Returns but had to withdraw when she became pregnant?
Annette Bening
Annette Bening won the part on the strength of The Grifters, then had to give it up. Michelle Pfeiffer, who had been devastated to miss out, stepped in.
Q 09Michelle Pfeiffer trained for months with champion Kathy Long in which combat sport to play Catwoman in Batman Returns?
Kickboxing
Kickboxing lessons ran alongside whip practice, and Long doubled for Pfeiffer on screen. Pfeiffer became skilled enough with the whip to perform many of her own stunts with it.
Q 10Which director took over the Batman film series from Tim Burton after Warner Bros. judged Batman Returns too dark?
Joel Schumacher
Joel Schumacher was hired to make a sequel friendlier to families and to merchandise, Batman Forever. Burton stayed on as a producer, but Michael Keaton walked away from the cape.
Q 11Before she becomes Catwoman in Batman Returns, the timid Selina Kyle works for Max Shreck in which job?
Secretary
Secretary to a tycoon was a deliberate choice. The writer wanted his Catwoman to begin at the lowest point in society, a beaten-down office worker, not a glamorous femme fatale.
Q 12How does Max Shreck try to silence Selina Kyle after she uncovers his plans in Batman Returns?
Pushes her out a window
Shreck pushes her out a window at the office, but fabric canopies break her fall. A group of alley cats wakes her, and she goes home to stitch together a costume.
Q 13In Batman Returns, what would the power plant that Max Shreck wants to build secretly do to the city?
Q 21Michelle Pfeiffer was considered for which role in the 1989 Batman, years before playing Catwoman in Batman Returns?
Vicki Vale
Vicki Vale might have been hers, but Michael Keaton vetoed the casting. The two had dated, and he feared her presence would get in the way of reconciling with his wife.
Q 22Which comedian was cast as Robin for Batman Returns, and paid for it, before the character was written out?
Marlon Wayans
Marlon Wayans had signed a two-film contract, and costumes and even action figures were made. Years later he said he was still receiving residual cheques for a part he never played.
Q 23Which star of Tim Burton's first feature film appears as the Penguin's father at the start of Batman Returns?
Paul Reubens
Drain Gotham's electricity
The plant would secretly drain Gotham's electricity and store it for Shreck. A blueprint of it was added at the suggestion of the actor playing him, and a model was built within hours.
Q 14Max Shreck persuades the Penguin to run for which public office in Batman Returns, hoping to unseat the incumbent?
Mayor
Mayor of Gotham is the prize. The idea came from two episodes of the 1960s Batman television series in which the Penguin stands for the same job.
Q 15Where in Gotham do the Penguin and his gang hide out, among live penguins, in Batman Returns?
An abandoned zoo exhibit
An abandoned zoo exhibit, the old Arctic display, is his lair. The set was kept so cold for the real birds that Danny DeVito said only his heavily padded costume kept him comfortable.
Q 16What is the birth name of the Penguin, the unwanted son of wealthy Gotham socialites, in Batman Returns?
Oswald Cobblepot
Oswald Cobblepot is dumped in the sewers as a baby by parents horrified at his appearance. The writers gave him that rejection to mirror Bruce Wayne, who lost his own parents as a boy.
Q 17After his campaign collapses in Batman Returns, the Penguin plots to kidnap and kill which group of Gotham's children?
First-born sons
First-born sons are his targets, in revenge for his own abandonment as a baby. The plot was a late addition, made because studio executives insisted the Penguin needed a master plan.
Q 18What weapons are strapped to the Penguin's army of birds for their final march on Gotham in Batman Returns?
Missiles
Missiles ride on the penguins' backs until Alfred overrides the control signal and turns the birds around. Early designs for the army gave them a flamethrower instead.
Q 19How does Catwoman finally kill Max Shreck, who has shot her several times, in Batman Returns?
Electrocuting him with a kiss
Electrocuting him with a kiss, she holds a taser between her teeth and a live power cable in her hand. She survives his bullets, claiming to have two of her nine lives left.
Q 20Which actress arrived at the Warner Bros. lot in a homemade Catwoman costume to demand an audition for Batman Returns?
Sean Young
Sean Young had lost a part in the 1989 film to an injury and believed this one should be hers. Tim Burton is said to have hidden under his desk while others met her.
Paul Reubens, the Pee-wee Herman of Pee-wee's Big Adventure, plays the father who leaves his baby in the sewers. Diane Salinger, another veteran of that film, plays the mother.
Q 24Which actor, the Penguin of the 1960s Batman TV series, missed a planned cameo in Batman Returns through illness?
Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith was due to appear as a relative of the new Penguin, a nod from one screen generation to the next. He fell ill during filming and the part was recast.
Q 25Which British actor plays the butler Alfred in Batman Returns, one of four Batman films in which he held the role?
Michael Gough
Michael Gough served two directors and three different Batmen as Alfred between 1989 and 1997. Before that he was known for Hammer horror films, beginning with Dracula in 1958.
Q 26Which actor, later the creature in The Shape of Water, plays the Thin Clown in Batman Returns?
Doug Jones
Doug Jones played the clown without prosthetics, a rarity in his career. He went on to play Guillermo del Toro's creatures, among them Abe Sapien, the Faun and the Pale Man.
Q 27Which composer scored Batman Returns despite his unhappiness that Prince songs had supplemented his 1989 Batman music?
Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman said he most enjoyed writing the Penguin's themes, because of the character's sympathetic side. He and Tim Burton fell out under deadline pressure and made up soon after.
Q 28Which British rock band co-wrote and performed Face to Face, the song heard at the costume ball in Batman Returns?
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Siouxsie and the Banshees wrote it with the film's composer, and it plays while Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle dance. Its words allude to the two characters without naming them.
Q 29Which Terminator and Jurassic Park effects artist designed Danny DeVito's Penguin prosthetics for Batman Returns?
Stan Winston
Stan Winston's studio made the prosthetics and thirty animatronic penguins. DeVito said getting ready took four and a half hours at first, cut to three by the end of the shoot.
Q 30Daniel Waters was hired to write Batman Returns because Tim Burton admired his script for which 1988 dark teen comedy?
Heathers
Heathers had the dark tone Burton wanted, and he liked that its writer had no emotional attachment to Batman. Waters duly ignored both the first film's story and comic-book history.