“Batman Forever” is known for a few things, including bringing Robin, Two-Face, and The Riddler to the big screen. It is also known for being awful. Joel Schumacher‘s first of two Batman movies that would eventually kill the franchise, before Christopher Nolan stepped in to reboot and revive it, has become an example of how to screw up comic book movies, but even from page one one, Michael Keaton had an inkling it was going to be bad.
An an interview with THR, the actor explains quite succinctly why he left the superhero series following “Batman” and “Batman Returns.”
“It sucked,” Keaton said about the script he read. “I knew it was in trouble when he [Schumacher] said, ‘Why does everything have to be so dark?’ ”
It’s not like Tim Burton‘s films were especially grim — they had their own style of primary colored fun, too — but Schumacher definitely took it in a very different direction, and the results speak for themselves.
Listen to the full conversation with Keaton below.
Batman Forever was better recieved than Returns when it came out. It made more money too. Not saying that I think it’s superior because it’s not, but my biggest complaint as a ten year old kid comming out of the theatre was “I wish Michael Keaton was in it”. And i still wish he had of, bright colors and all. I wonder if he could’ve swayed Joel S. to stay with the tone of the first 2 if he’d of stayed on, we know he can direct dark movies, there was no reason to think the director of Falling Down couldn’t have made an adult Batman film, he just couldn’t keep his gay taste out of a movie about men in black rubber
I do wish we could’ve have gotten Batman 3 with peak Burton directing and Brad Dourif as Scarecrow.
It’s an unpopular opinion to have these days, but I still favor Batman Forever above Batman Returns. For Keaton to say its script sucked is interesting, given how much silliness Returns had packed into it.