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Google PlayThe ’90s were an interesting time to be a Batman fan. The celebrity-packed big-screen roller coaster began with Tim Burton’s massive 1989 flick and went on to include Jim Carrey expanding his decade-defining run by playing the Riddler in ’95’s Batman Forever, followed by George Clooney’s nipple-suit in Batman & Robin two years later.
Many DC heads remember the feeling of Michael Keaton departing his role as the Dark Knight before that third film, with Val Kilmer instead taking on the duties in Gotham. As Keaton has now told In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast, the story of Bruce Wayne was always more important to him than Batman, and directorial replacement Joel Schumacher—who came in after Burton’s 1993 sequel Batman Returns—disagreed with Keaton about the dark nature of the universe.
“I remember one of the things that I walked away going, ‘Oh boy, I can’t do this,’” Keaton said. “[Schumacher] asked me, ‘I don’t understand why everything has to be so dark and everything so sad,’ and I went, ‘Wait a minute, do you know how this guy got to be Batman? Have you read…I mean, it’s pretty simple.’”
As the now-70-year-old explained, Wayne’s story was the driving narrative force. And while the character became a cultural icon when he put on his suit, Keaton says the films were “always” about Wayne over his superhero counterpart.
“It was always Bruce Wayne,” he said. “It was never Batman. To me, I know the name of the movie is Batman, and it’s hugely iconic and very cool and [a] cultural 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? What kind of person?”
Things aren’t over for Keaton’s Batman, though, as he’s set to reprise his iconic role in the upcoming The Flash movie, which is planned to arrive on Nov. 4. Ben Affleck is also supposedly appearing as yet another Batman, as the film introduces Bat-fans to the “idea of the multiverse, one of the core concepts underpinning DC Comics,” per director Andy Muschietti of It fame.
Keaton will also reportedly take on the Batman role once more for DC’s upcoming Batgirl movie, and his future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Spider-Man villain Vulture appears to be far from finished.
