George Clooney Continues To Badmouth ‘Batman & Robin,’ Tried To Talk Ben Affleck Out Of Playing Batman

At this point, it’s been clearly established that George Clooney does not like “Batman & Robin,” or at least is so focused on pleasing the fans who hated that movie, that he’ll continue to apologize for the rest of his life. Now, it seems Clooney is even expanding his opinion to encompass the entirety of the character, as proven by him trying to talk Ben Affleck out of playing Batman.

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In a recent appearance in “The Howard Stern Show” (via Indiewire) to promote his latest film “The Midnight Sky,” Clooney talked about his experience playing the Caped Crusader and how it was supposed to be his big-screen break.

“It’s so bad that it actually hurts to watch,” Clooney said. “It physically hurts. You’ll be flipping the channels and it’ll just pop up and I’m like ‘Oh no, no, no.’” Come on, Clooney. There’s no way you really think “Batman & Robin,” which is honestly a pretty entertaining film, is worse than “The Monuments Men,” or “The Good German.”

But he doesn’t stop there. Clooney goes on to talk about his performance and also Akiva Goldsman‘s screenplay. “It’s a terrible screenplay. He’ll tell ya. I’m terrible in it. I’ll tell ya. Joel Schumacher, who just passed away, directed it and he’d say, ‘Yeah, it didn’t work,’” Clooney added. “We all whiffed on that one.”

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In any case, the film was such a traumatic, painful event for Clooney that he all but continues to have nightmares about bats and Arnold Schwarzenegger doing ice puns. As Clooney tells it, he tried to talk Ben Affleck out of playing Batman in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”

“I’ve sort of had both rounds….I’ve been a big flop. I’ve bombed in things, and I’ve had big successes. That doesn’t mean they listen. Ben didn’t listen to me, and ended up doing a great job, and I was wrong,” Clooney said. “But I can only impart my wisdom from my experience. I just said, ‘Don’t have nipples on the suit.’”