Michael Keaton Talks About Returning to Play Batman After All These Years
One of the coolest things to come out of DC’s upcoming The Flash movie is Michael Keaton returning to reprise his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman after all of these years. This is something that I never expected to see happen. It was also recently confirmed that he will be playing Batman in the upcoming Batgirl film!
During a recent interview withVariety, Keaton talked about returning to play Batman and explained that he'd been curious for some time about what it would be like to have the opportunity to suit up again if the opportunity presented itself.
"'What would that be like?' or 'What if I had to do that again.’ Just because I was curious didn't mean I wanted to do it. So, it took a long time, frankly… I'm not just gonna say I'll do it. It has to be good and there has to be a reason."
So, he’s obviously happy with the direction that they are taking his version of Batman in these films, which is great! It gives me hope that director Andy Muschietti might actually deliver a great film with The Flash. The filmmaker previously shared:
"I think Keaton was honored to come to do this character again. But mainly we sent him a great script, and that is probably the thing that got him interested. It's more complex than this… we gave him a great script and I promised him great direction. And that was about it.”
Keaton also previously talked about putting the Batman suit back on for the film saying:
"It was shockingly normal. It was weird," Keaton described wearing the suit and cape again. "Like I went 'Oh, oh yeah, that's right.' But also, then you start to play the scenes and a lot of memories, a lot of interesting sense memories (start to come back)." Keaton wouldn't confirm if he's said the iconic line "I'm Batman" yet while filming (a wise wager would be to bet on him saying it at some point though) and also said he's yet to talk to Tim Burton about what he's doing. "No, but just because we haven't because we've got other stuff to talk about."
The movie also stars Ezra Miller as The Flash, Ben Affleck as Batman, and Kiersey Clemons as Iris West, and Ron Livingston and Maribel Verdú are playing Barry’s parents. Saoirse-Monica Jackson (Derry Girls) and internet personality Rudy Mancuso have also been cast in undisclosed roles.
The director previously teased "all that you've seen exists." The Flash will see Barry Allen "breaking the bonds of physics to crash into various parallel dimensions, where he’ll encounter slightly different versions of DC’s classic heroes."
The director also explained things a little further regarding how this new DC Multiverse is actually going to work in The Flash, saying, "This movie is a bit of a hinge in the sense that it presents a story that implies a unified universe where all the cinematic iterations that we’ve seen before are valid. It’s inclusive in the sense that it is saying all that you’ve seen exists, and everything that you will see exists, in the same unified multiverse. "I will tell you is that it's a ride. It's going to be fun and exciting and there are a lot of DC characters in it. Flash is the superhero of this film because he is the bridge between all of these characters and timelines. And in a way, it restarts everything and doesn't forget anything."
The Flash was written by Christina Hodson, and it’s set to hit theaters on November 4, 2022.