SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING's Michael Keaton Bluntly Explains Why He Chose Not To Return For BATMAN FOREVER
During a new interview, original big-screen Caped Crusader Michael Keaton concisely explains why he left the franchise when Joel Schumacher replaced Tim Burton as director on Batman Forever...
It's been well documented that Michael Keaton declined to reprise the role of The Dark Knight in Warner Bros.' Batman Forever when director Tim Burton left the project, but during THR's Award Chatter Podcast, the Academy Award-nominated actor reveals that he did "hang on for many meetings", but ultimately the script and new director Joel Schumacher's attitude to the material caused him to walk away.
"Let me simplify it for you: it sucked," laughed Keaton after addressing the years of speculation about his departure from the role. "The script was never good, I didn't understand why he [Schumacher] wanted to do what he wanted to do, and I knew it was in trouble when he said, 'why does everything have to be so dark?'"
Keaton also says that he would have been more open to trying something different with the tone etc if Burton was the one calling the shots, but he felt Schumacher simply didn't "get" the character.
Would you have liked to see Michael Keaton play the character again, or are you glad he left before the camp of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin pretty much destroyed the superhero sub-genre at the time?