Bill Murray Explains Why He and Eddie Murphy Passed on Playing Batman and Robin for Ivan Reitman

Remember the Batman & Robin movie from the ‘80s that Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman wanted to make? Me neither, but apparently it was the talk of the town back then, and Reitman hoped he could cast Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy in the lead roles. The only problem was the two leads couldn’t agree on which one of them got to play Batman.

Murray told Yahoo's Never-Weres this week:

"I talked to Eddie Murphy about it, and Eddie wanted to play Batman. That's as far as that conversation went."

He went on to elaborate, saying:

"I don't wanna be the Boy Wonder to anybody. Maybe much earlier when I was a boy. But it was too late for that by the '80s. Also, I couldn't do the outfit. Eddie looks good in purple, and I look good in purple. In red and green, I look like one of Santa's elves. There was just a lot of vanity involved in the production. It wasn't gonna happen."

So what we ended up getting that decade, instead of a comedic caped crusader tale from Reitman, was Tim Burton's 1989 film Batman, which ended up being pretty great. So I think it all worked out for the best. But would you have liked to have seen a Murray/Murphy Batman & Robin movie? Who do you think should have played Batman?