George Clooney's 'Brother Batman' Completely Forgot He Was a Caped Crusader Once, Too
It’s when your fellow Batmans don’t ever remember you being one of them that you realize how terrible your movie truly was. Michael Keaton ensured George Clooney knew that.
Without a doubt, Batman is one of the most iconic and popular superheroes of all time. Apart from comics, throughout the years, there have been dozens of adaptations, including several live-actions. Most of them received worldwide praise, but one was a huge exception — an exception so terrible it almost killed the franchise.
1997’s Batman & Robin with George Clooney aimed to start a brand-new movie series about the Caped Crusader, but it turned out so phenomenally wrong that for the next eight years, no one dared to even try making another live-action movie about Batman. It was Christopher Nolan who turned the tables with 2008’s Batman Begins in 2008…but that’s beside the point.
George Clooney has acknowledged his failure numerous times and even claimed that he always apologizes for Batman & Robin whenever this movie comes up in a discussion. However, the true scale of this disgrace must be put into perspective.
When speaking to The Guardian, Michael Keaton, who wore the Caped Crusader’s cape before Clooney, revealed that he didn’t even remember the Ocean’s Eleven star playing the iconic superhero at all. This obviously led to some confusion when the two were working together on 1998’s Out Of Sight…which was just after Batman & Robin’s release!
“[George] used to shout at me, ‘Hey, the brotherhood!’ And I’d go, ‘Hey!’ But I had no idea what he meant. Swear to God! And he did it a bunch of times: ‘Brotherhood!’ And then someone explained it to me and I was like, ‘Ohhhhh!’ I mean, I think I’d forgotten he was in [Batman, too],” Keaton explained.
While Clooney was happily unaware of this confusion at the time, it might have really hurt to read this revelation in the media after Keaton shared it. But realistically, since it happened 18 years later, George Clooney must have had plenty of time to come to terms with his Batman & Robin failure — and judging from his light-hearted attitude to it, he most likely did.
Source: The Guardian