In 1997, when the Smashing Pumpkins were arguably the world’s top alternative-rock band, they released a promotional single, “The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning,” in conjunction with one of the year’s bestselling films, Batman & Robin.

The stars seemed aligned for a hit. Joel Schumacher’s movie had an A-list cast — George Clooney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Uma Thurman — and it was a financial success, taking home an estimated $240 million at the box office worldwide. Yet the song bombed.

“It was a disaster,” Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan said in a recent appearance on the podcast And the Writer Is. “Nobody cared. No fans said they loved the song, nothing.”

If the story ended there, it wouldn’t be much of a story. Many bands have written songs for movies that crash and burn. Yet something remarkable happened. About 15 years later, the song appeared in another comic book adaptation. This time around, the movie was Zack Snyder’s 2009 dystopian drama The Watchmen, which featured the tune in its trailer.

Snyder’s film was less financially successful than Schumacher’s dreadful Batman, the first movie I ever walked out of, but it was a much better movie. Roger Ebert gave it 4/4 stars, calling it “a compelling visceral film … that evokes the feel of a graphic novel.” Suddenly, “The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning” was a hit. After a decade and a half of irrelevance, it was on the Top 100 on iTunes.

Corgan explained that the visuals of Snyder’s film seemed to connect people to the music, turning the song from a “nothing, nobody gave a s***, to an instant classic.” The rediscovered gem taught the Pumpkins frontman something important.

“It’s not up to us to assess value,” Corgan said.

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