FAQ

Shy and meek-mannered Patience Phillips (Halle Berry), working as a graphic designer for Hedare Beauty Cosmetics, is killed one night when she is caught in a waste pipe and flushed out into a river. She is brought back to life, however, by an Egyptian Mau, a temple cat sacred to the goddess Bast, that bestows upon her the speed, confidence, reflexes, and senses of a feline, turning her into the fierce and stealthy Catwoman. Although Catwoman tries to do good deeds, like saving a young boy on a broken ferris wheel, she is blamed for a string of crime sprees and is being investigated by Detective Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt) who also happens to be falling in love with Patience. But it's when she discovers a toxic little secret about Hedcare's line of beauty cream that things really become CATastrophic.

The story and screenplay were written by American screenwriters John Brancato, Michael Ferris, John Rogers, and Theresa Rebeck, although the character of Catwoman is loosely based on the Selina Kyle/Catwoman created by DC Comics' Bob Kane and Bill Finger, both of whom also created the character Batman. Catwoman's first appearance was in Batman #1 in Spring of 1940.

No. Halle Berry's Catwoman is a completely different character named Patience Phillips. Selina Kyle, the Catwoman-as played by Michelle Pfeiffer-is (very) briefly referenced via a photograph to link this movie to the Tim Burton film.

Just as Laurel is about to shoot Tom, Catwoman shows up. She whips the gun from Laurel's hand and helps Tom get away, taking out two of Laurel's goons along the way. When Tom is safe, she returns for a final confrontation with Laurel, revealing her identity as Patience Phillips...the woman Laurel killed by flushing down the pipe. They begin to fight, but Catwoman is soon surprised to see that Laurel's skin is hard as marble and impervious to pain because of her use of Beau-Line, and Laurel eventually gets the upper hand, crashing Catwoman into a window and smashing her against the glass. Catwoman rallies and scratches Laurel's cheeks with her diamond claws, causing Laurel's skin to begin disintegrating. Laurel falls through the broken window but manages to grab on to a pole. As Catwoman reaches to pull her back up, Laurel's hand slips and she falls 20 stories to the ground, killing her. Catwoman is joined by Tom, who tells her that, if Patience was found in her jail cell in the morning, it would be awful hard to prove that she was Catwoman. Some days later, Tom receives a letter at work and, in a voiceover, Patience reads: The day I died was the day I started to live. In my old life, I longed for someone to see what was special in me. You did, and for that you will always be in my heart. But what I really needed was for me to see it. And now I do. You're a good man, Tom. You live in a world that has no place for someone like me. You see, sometimes I'm good...very good. But sometimes I'm bad, but only as bad as I want to be. Freedom is power. To live a life untamed and unafraid is the gift that I've been given. And so my journey begins. In the final scene, Catwoman is shown walking along roof ledges, silhouetted in the moon and whipping around her whip.

There have been no plans for a sequel to Catwoman. However, in May 2006, IGN's FilmForce quoted actress Halle Berry as saying, If they seriously said, "We want to do another one and here's how we're going to make it better because we learned from the mistakes," I would because I believe we could make it better. I think Catwoman is a great character that maybe wasn't presented in the right way. But when people see it on video they seem to like it. They're like, "It wasn't as bad as they all said!" Despite this comment, it is highly unlikely that a sequel will ever be produced considering the film flopped at the box office and was subject to numerous negative reviews, while also never generating a "cult following" like some (often rather unique) box office failures have.