Michael Keaton details why he ultimately decided to stop playing the Dark Knight ahead of Joel Schumacher’s film “Batman Forever”…
Michael Keaton arguably played one of the best live action versions of Batman and Bruce Wayne through two films directed by Tim Burton but he famously left the blockbuster franchise ahead of the third film in the series titled “Batman Forever.”
Now as he reprises the famous role for an appearance in the upcoming DC movie “The Flash” as well as making an appearance in the “Batgirl” movie, Keaton has finally explained why he ultimately decided to exit the critically acclaimed role.
According to Keaton, it was the campier and lighter vision for the character that director Joel Schumacher had in mind when he took over the franchise once Burton also decided he wasn’t going to return for the third film. Part of what attracted Keaton to the role in the first place was the dark, ominous tone surrounding a character like Bruce Wayne, who becomes a vigilante following both of his parents being murdered by a criminal in Gotham City.
“When the director who directed the third one, I said, ‘I just can’t do it,’” Keaton told the In The Envelope podcast. “And one of the reasons I couldn’t do it was — and you know, he’s a nice enough man, he’s passed away, so I wouldn’t speak ill of him even if he were alive — he, at one point, after more than a couple of meetings where I kept trying to rationalize doing it and hopefully talking him into saying, ‘I think we don’t want to go in this direction, I think we should go in this direction.’ And he wasn’t going to budge.”
Keaton explained how his real interest in doing “Batman” back in 1989 actually centered around the character of Bruce Wayne, who is a billionaire businessman and philanthropist on the surface but that’s only a veneer hiding the damaged past that has shaped his entire future.
“It was always Bruce Wayne. It was never Batman,” Keaton said about taking the role. “To me, I know the name of the movie is ‘Batman,’ and it’s hugely iconic and very cool and [culturally] iconic and because of Tim Burton, artistically iconic. I knew from the get-go it was Bruce Wayne.
“That was the secret. I never talked about it. Batman, Batman, Batman does this, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘Y’all are thinking wrong here.’ Bruce Wayne. What kind of person does that?…Who becomes that?”
Despite Keaton’s pleas that “Batman Forever” shouldn’t take such a dramatic turn from the tone at the center of the first two films, Schumacher just wasn’t interested in making that kind of movie.
“[Schumacher said] ‘I don’t understand why everything has to be so dark and everything so sad,’” Keaton said when relaying his memories of a conversation with the director. “Wait a minute, do you know how this guy got to be Batman? Have you read… I mean, it’s pretty simple.”
Once it was clear that he couldn’t come to terms with Schumacher on the direction that “Batman Forever” was taking, Keaton decided to leave the role and he was later replaced by Val Kilmer.
While “Batman Forever” still made over $300 million at the box office, reviews for the film were drastically less enthusiastic than the first two films starring Keaton. Schumacher returned for “Batman and Robin,” which then starred George Clooney in the lead role as the Caped Crusader and that became one of the biggest critical disasters in comic book movie history.
As for Keaton, he will return to the iconic role as Bruce Wayne and Batman for the first time in 30 years when he makes his appearance in the upcoming film “The Flash” starring Ezra Miller in the lead role.
