Joel Schumacher, director of & quot; Batman Forever & quot; dies

NEW YORK (AP) - Joel Schumacher, the flamboyant and hard-working director who decorated New York storefronts before bringing the group of actors known as the Brat Pack to the big screen in “St. Elmo's Fire "(" The first year of the rest of our lives ") and lead the Batman franchise to its most baroque territory with" Batman Forever "(" Batman forever ") and" Batman & Robin ", is dead. He was 80 years old.

A representative for Schumacher said the filmmaker died in New York on Monday after a year-long battle with cancer.

Schumacher became a prominent genre film director of the 1990s after the success of "St. Elmo's Fire ”with Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy, as well as the vampire comedy“ The Lost Boys ”.

After films like "Flatliners" and "A Time to Kill", Schumacher inherited the direction of Tim Burton's DC universe tapes . His raucous version of Batman resulted in two of the franchise's most cartoonish films in 1995's "Batman Forever" and 1997's "Batman & Robin".

Schumacher also directed the thrillers “Tigerland” and “Phone Booth” as well as “The Phantom of the Opera”.