Why Michael Keaton Turned Down $15 Million for BATMAN 3
Michael Keaton is currently doing press for his new movie Birdman, and the media can't seem to help but ask him about Batman. The superhero is a hot topic of discussion because of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which is currently in production. Keaton played Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. He was supposed to come back for a third Batman film, but once Burton's film was ditched by the studio in favor of Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever things took a turn for the worse. The studio offered Keaton $15 million dollars to reprise his role as the Dark Knight in the film, but he turned it down. CBS Sunday Morning asked why he turned it down and he gave one simple answer,
"Sucked. Yeah, it just was awful!"
It really was. It must have been hard to turn down $15 million though! That's a lot of freakin' money! The fact that he did though tells us the guy cares about the films he involves himself with. Keaton also pointed out in the interview that Affleck wasn't the only actor who has had to deal with fan outcry from being cast as Batman. He amusingly compared the petitions that people sent to Warner Bros. to "villagers with torches, coming to get me!"
In a separate interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor elaborated on not reprising the role saying,
“I hadn’t been stupid about it. I always knew it was a big machine with a big studio and corporation behind it. But the simple answer was, it wasn’t any good. I was nice. I said to them, ‘This is a really interesting character with a dual personality.’ I tried to make them understand. But when somebody says to you, ‘Does it have to be so dark?'... I thought, are we talking about the same character? So finally I just said no.”
The actor was then asked if he would entertain the idea of suiting back up and playing Batman. He replied with the following answer:
“If it was Tim Burton directing? In a heartbeat. Tim, in the movies, really invented the whole dark-superhero thing. He started everything, and some of the guys who have done these movies since then don’t say that, and they’re wrong.”
Unfortunately we'll never see that happen, but if it did, it could be one of the most successful Batman movies that the studio makes. Could you imagine these two guys teaming back up to bring us a direct adaptation of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns? That would be badass.
Via: Comicbook