“I think he didn’t know how he was gonna feel”: Michael Keaton Got Teary Eyes After Becoming Batman Again Despite Walking Away From the Role 30 Years Ago
One of the fan favorite actors who has worn the famous Batman cape is actor Michael Keaton who played the title role in director Tim Burton’s Batman. The actor garnered a lot of praise for portraying the character skillfully from both the crowd and the reviewers.
Keaton, who was supposed to reprise his role as Batman in the third film as well, decided to say goodbye to his wildly successful and well-liked character as well when Tim Burton was dropped as the film’s director. The actor revealed that he did not agree with the screenplay approved by director Joel Schumacher. But recently, he once more put on the Batman cape for The Flash, and he was moved to tears by being back on the set.
Michael Keaton’s emotional reaction to Batcave in The Flash
Fans were thrilled when it was reported that the veteran actor Michael Keaton, who is one of the most loved Batman was going to appear in Ezra Miller’s starrer The Flash, thirty years after he bid adieu to his character, Bruce Wayne.
During an interview with IGN, director Andy Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti shared how it was to witness Michael Keaton walking in the Batcave after three decades. They mentioned how his walking onto the Batcave set affected him. Andy Muschietti said,
“When [Keaton] arrived to the set, the Batcave was already finished and it was lit and everything. He stayed like this [eyes wide] for a while. I didn’t want to interrupt him. I just wanted for him to take it in. Who knows what was going on there? But something was going on there.”
The director further noted that Keaton asked him if he could take a picture of him after the shot when he was in his suit for his grandson, noting that it was one of the moments where the actor showed that he was emotional to be back on the set.
In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2021, the actor credited Tim Burton for starting the superhero movies as artistically ambitious. He said at the time,
“What Tim did changed everything. Everything you see now started with him. If you really think about what happened between 1989 and now, on a cultural, corporate, economic level, it’s unbelievable.”
Andy Muschietti said Michael Keaton walked away with a lot of love for Batman
CBR, reported that the director had mentioned that Keaton’s son Sean Douglas, who was four years old when his father had initially donned the Batman suit, visited the set with his kid. He said,
“Michael’s son and his grandson were in [Warner Bros. Studios] Leavesden, visiting one day and Michael told me ‘When I did Tim Burton’s Batman, Sean [his son] was four years old and now my grandson is four years old, and he’s seeing his grandfather as Batman,’ and that was very emotional for him and, of course, for us as well. I think Keaton didn’t know how he was gonna feel about being this character again, but to be honest, I think he’s walking away from this movie with a lot of love for Batman.”
The Flash even though it did not perform at the box office as it had been expected to do, it surely did make a lot of fans happy to witness Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne, along with a cameo appearance from George Clooney as Bruce Wayne and a version of Ben Affleck as Batman.
Andy Muschietti reveals there was no plan B if Michael Keaton did not say yes to The Flash
In a conversation with ComicBook.com, the director mentioned that they did not have a backup option for the movie if the actor had refused to star in The Flash. He said,
“Yeah, it was a continuation in the sense that the world where we find Michael Keaton is the same universe where he was in his adventures in the Tim Burton movies. It’s just, you know, we have to take some licenses. Some creative licenses to replicate some of the things that are designed. Make things evolve because I wanted Batman to have kept being Batman for a few more years after we saw him for the last time.”
In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter back in 2021, he revealed that he said yes to reprising the role only to see if he could pull it off, adding that he had to read the script more than three times to understand it. He added,
“It was not a silly thing when I did Batman. But it has become a giant thing, culturally. It’s iconic. So I have even more respect for it because what do I know? This is a big deal in the world to people. You’ve got to honor that and be respectful of that. Even I go, ‘Jesus, this is huge.’ “
The Flash is available to stream on Max.
Source: CBR
