Joel Shumacher, the man who famously put nipples on the Dark Knight’s costume in “Batman Forever,” isn’t known as a lion of the independent cinema. Still the director of “The Client” and “A Time to Kill” insists that he’s always had a penchant for mixing in low-budget personal projects like “Tigerland” with more mainstream fare.




“Twelve,” the story of a high-school dropout (”Gossip Girl”s’ Chace Crawford) who peddles designer drugs to spoiled Upper East Side teens is very much a passion project. Based on a novel by Nick McDonell, penned when he was just 17, it also involves a brutal murder, a false arrest and a lot of strung-out kids.



The movie, which stars newcomers like Crawford and more established actors like Kiefer Sutherland and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, has been tapped to be the closing night film at this year’s festival.



Schumacher, a Park City newbie, talked with TheWrap about branching into independent cinema at an age when many of his contemporaries are thinking about retirement.



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