Michael Keaton Reflects On Why He Stopped Playing Bruce Wayne After Tim Burton's 'BATMAN RETURNS'
Many people agree, Michael Keaton was and is Batman. Sure we’ve had many different iterations of the character on the big screen over the years but something about Keaton and his portrayal of Bruce Wayne stands the test of time.
So why didn’t Keaton reprise the role of Bruce Wayne in 1995’s Batman Forever? Quite simply, it seems, he didn’t agree with director Joel Schumacher‘s lighter, campier vision for the DC Comics franchise.
Speaking with In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast, Keaton explains the decision.
“I remember one of the things that I walked away going, ‘Oh boy, I can’t do this’. [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,'” Keaton recalls, noting that Schumacher wouldn’t budge on his vision.
On that note, Keaton also explains to the podcast that he was far more interested in Bruce Wayne than Batman, something else that played a role in his decision to move on.
“It was always Bruce Wayne. It was never Batman,” Keaton digs into his own personal idea of the character. “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 always 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.’ It’s about Bruce Wayne. Who’s that guy? What kind of person does that? Who becomes that?”
We appreciate Keaton’s expectations about Wayne. A man so consumed by grief and loss that he takes the law into his own hands. That’s a dark ass concept if there ever was one. Just look at The Punisher, could you imagine that character being flowers and rainbows and comedic? Yeah, we didn’t think so and we now understand and agree with Keaton on his walking out of Batman Forever.
