In LEGO Batman: Legend of the Dark Knight, TT Games creates a mishmash of all of Batman’s most iconic moments across movies and TV. From Batman: The Animated Series, The Dark Knight, and even Batman and Robin, the Caped Crusader’s whole history is on display here. Aside from the big homages throughout, there are a few deeper cuts, one of which comes as the credits roll, following the main story’s completion.
To go along with this climactic moment, instead of a bombastic piece from Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, or Michael Giacchino, TT Games instead opted for “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal. This sappy power ballad from 1994 seems a little out of place when compared to the rest of the music typically associated with Batman, but TT Games doubled down. They featured the track as the music for the game’s final trailer. While this choice of tone may seem strange to younger fans, this iconic ballad owes a lot of its success to Batman, and the two have been intertwined since very early in the song’s life.
Seal Wasn’t a Good Fit for a Batman Movie, but Schumacher Saved the Day
“Kiss from a Rose” comes from Seal’s second studio album, Seal II. Despite not being an enormous success, the song, song, it was quickly scooped up for a film soundtrack, the first of which was The NeverEnding Story III, not a film that had the cultural cachet to send seal into the stratosphere. Luckily, Seal then caught the ear of director Joel Schumacher. Schumacher, best known for St Elmo’s Fire, was recently hired as the replacement for Tim Burton as the director of the next Batman movie. This movie would become Batman: Forever, starring Val Kilmer as Batman, facing off against Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face and Jim Carrey as The Riddler.
Schumacher had called Seal, seeking a song for a romantic scene in the upcoming Batman film. Seal’s team sent over Seal II with “Kiss From a Rose” highlighted. Schumacher fell in love with the song; however, it didn’t work with the visuals of the scene. However, because Schumacher liked the song so much, he decided to put it in the end credits of the movie. This exposure was apparently all the song needed, as the track that had flopped previously was on its way to chart dominance and a sea change for Seal.
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The Batman Boost Pays off for Seal
The inclusion of “Kiss From A Rose” in the end credits of Batman: Forever shot the song into the stratosphere. The movie was the second-highest-grossing film of 1995 in the US (only losing out to Toy Story). The movie raked in $336 million on a $100 million budget. This financial success allowed Schumacher to make a follow-up, Batman and Robin in 1997, starring George Clooney, who donned the cape and cowl for one of the most divisive superhero films of all time.
With its inclusion in the film, the general public fell as in love with the track as Schumacher did. Alongside its use in the movie, Joel Schumaker also stepped in to direct a Batman-themed music video for “Kiss from a Rose.” The video features Seal, singing on a rooftop, dramatically lit by the massive Bat-Signal behind him, intercut with clips from the movie. The smattering of clips in the video is slightly jarring, as the video cuts between Seal’s soulful, moody singing and Batman swinging from a grappling hook or the Batmobile driving away from an explosion. The symbiotic relationship between the song and the film was clearly a success, as the movie would propel Seal further than ever before.
The track hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late August of 1995, about two months following the film’s release. Even though it only topped the chart for a week, the song was successful enough to make it to No. 4 for the Year-End singles Hot 100.
Following the success of “Kiss from a Rose,” Seal won three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year and Record of the Year, two of the most prestigious awards in music, for the track. Seal has continued to create hits, following up one soundtrack banger with another, this time a cover of “Fly Like an Eagle” by the Steve Miller Band for the Space Jam soundtrack. Covers of R&B and Jazz standards would be a big part of Seal’s repertoire going forward, as he continues to perform live to this day.
A Legacy Lives on in LEGO
In 2020, Joel Schumacher died at the age of 80, following a lengthy battle with cancer. Following Schumacher’s death, Seal reflected on his friend and the impact of the late director and Batman Forever on his career. He called “Kiss from a Rose” the biggest song of his career, noting how the movie was all it needed to break the song into the mainstream. “The only thing we did was make a decent video for it,” he said in an Instagram post. “He (Shumacher) didn’t even charge me; he said he loved the song so much. Subsequently, kids thought I was Batman because the song was so big.” It’s hard to argue with the legacy of the song, as it currently holds over 600 million streams on Spotify, a difficult number to reach, especially for a song that was released in the pre-streaming era.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark of Knight appropriately uses “Kiss from a Rose” in its own credits sequence, potentially exposing the song to a legion of new fans, as Legacy of the Dark Knight has already sold 1.2 million copies and earned a critic review score of 86 on Metacritic. A more dramatic, cinematic version of “Kiss from a Rose” was also used in the game’s launch trailer, which has almost a million views. The game’s attention to detail in all aspects of the Batman mythos, in movies, TV, games, and comics, gives players the chance to follow their curiosity down the rabbit hole into all sorts of Batman media. “A Kiss from a Rose” is already a classic, but this recent nostalgic resurgence will hopefully ensure the track is loved by fans new and old for years to come.