Michael Keaton wanted 'Batman Forever' to be more like 'Batman Begins'

Before Val Kilmer put on the cape and cowl for 1995's Batman Forever, Michael Keaton was set to play Batman for the third time. Keaton ended up pulling out of the project because he didn't like the direction it was going (less dark, more colorful) and the rest is history. Keaton was a guest on the WTF Podcast with Marc Maron last week and talked about the direction he wanted the third Batman movie to go in. Surprisingly, it was very similar to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins -- Keaton wanted to explore Bruce Wayne's origin story. Here's a quote from the podcast:

"The guy who's doing them now, Chris Nolan, he’s so talented, it's crazy. [Christian Bale] is so talented. It’s so good.” he enthused. "But I say that like I’ve seen them, and I actually haven’t. I didn’t even see much of the second one that I did."
"You look at where he went, which is exactly what I wanted to do when I was having meetings about the third one," he continued. "I said you want to see how this guy started. We’ve got a chance here to fix whatever we kind of maybe went off. This could be brilliant."

That definitely would have been interesting... but it would have been strange to have Keaton in an origin story after he had already established himself as Batman in two previous films. Instead, we got Batman Forever followed by Batman & Robin, but maybe that was a blessing in disguise. Would we have got Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy without them? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

SOURCE: WTF Podcast [via Collider]

26 comments

Slipknot0131

January 7, 2013

I think if they ever make a live-action Batman Beyond Movie ( which would be amazing!), Michael Keaton should be casted as the older Bruce Wayne. Besides Christian Bale, he was the best Batman.

Raymond Rivers
January 7, 2013
If they were to make a Batman Beyond film I believe John Blake would fit in well as the Batman. That is what Batman Beyond basically is, a continuation of the Batman legacy.
ChristianNYC
December 30, 2014
I am sorry Christian Bale was NOT the bedr Batman he was a bit annoying with.that lisp
1. ChristianNYC
  December 30, 2014
  I meant best

Darren Boyle

January 7, 2013

Its hard in Artistic hindsight what would another artists might do with Batman... I am glad its not "sour grapes" with Mr. Keaton.

Jamie Riser

January 7, 2013

I don't know. Nolan probably would've gotten into the mix eventually, but if Tim Burton would've done the third film and wanted to go darker into Bruce's story he could've done it right. I think Tim Burton doing a villain like the Scare Crow would be so great! So much better than anything Schumacher could ever do. But that's just me. Imo Keaton was the greatest batman ever. Adam West owned it in his time, but Michael Keaton was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I wish they would do batman beyond the movie, and have Keaton play Bruce. That would be great.

diogo02000

January 7, 2013

Batman Forever have some 'Year One' and 'TDKReturns' elements in several scenes what trying to explain "why he dresses like a Bat?", but sadly most of this scenes are throw away in cutting room. But i loved see Tim Burton finished the trilogy or the original cut of Batman Forever be launch, but for now, has been said on the news, what happen later was a blessing in disguise.

lethargicj

January 7, 2013

I've always said Batman and Robin is the most important Batman movie ever. That movie not only set WB straight on what kind of Batman movie people wanted, it woke up the entire Hollywood community that we wanted to see these characters treated with respect. You think WB really wanted to wait 8 years between Batman movies? Hell no, but they knew they had to wait and get it right or they would be drug out into the streets and beaten to death.

Adam the strange

January 7, 2013

I think Keaton actually is my favorite batman, or at least my favorite Bruce Wayne. He has a natural darkness around him thy Bale lacks. While Bale's movies are by far and away "better" I think that Keaton was hands down the best at the Bruce role.

If a future batman beyond movie were made, I'd prefer an older Keaton as old Bruce over any of the others.

Who knows what's on the forefront for the character though. I do like the idea of a more "detective" batman character coming through with JGL.

Atsarnecky

January 7, 2013

Interesting. Many people would be surprised to know that Schumacher wanted Batman Forever to be dark, but the Warner Bros. execs wanted a lighter film after the less than family-friendly Batman Returns. I believe I've read that Schumacher actually wanted to adapt Year One. I think you can see some of that darkness still in the forgotten memories in Forever. After Forever, Warner pushed for even more camp in the sequel, if I'm not mistaken.

Not saying none of the camp was Schumacher's fault. He's certainly has some flamboyant tendencies, I just believe it wasn't entirely his fault. Being said, Forever is entertaining but a bad Batman movie. Batman & Robin is just a plain bad movie, but fun to watch cause it's so bad.

Jon David Snow

January 7, 2013

Although I agree with this fully. Sadly, Nolan said he wanted to go where no-one had gone before...so if Keaton had managed to persuade directors - we wouldn't have the trilogy we have now . Then again, it might mean we have a different trilogy that might be even better than Nolan...you never know...

danielcurtis

January 7, 2013

Christopher Nolan's series can't touch Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Say I'm wrong! The Dark Knight was a fail and the Dark Knight Rises is stupid. ........wow, I don't mean this at all but it's strange to see it typed up!

Shark

January 8, 2013

I've read the script that Tim burton had for batman forever and it wouldn't have been like batman begins. It would have been about mainly the riddler and batman finding an African American kid on the street that has the combination of dick Graysons and Jason Todd's back story who later becomes robin when he's picked of the street by batman to be trained by him involving them meeting in an alley. There would not have been two face in the movie and batman would be shafted to make way for the riddler and robin.

Bulgarian Balehead

January 8, 2013

How can one compare a skinny, curly-haired rom-com actor an Academy Award winner that's the most dedicated actor of his generation? Bale is so much better than Keaton in every aspect, including their portrayals of Batman, that people who say it's the other way around sound absolutely ridiculous to me.

Antrozous
January 8, 2013
That´s what I personally love the most about Keaton´s portrayal, he seems such a wrong choice and yet no other actor convinced me more that Bruce Wayne had a dark, troubled soul...
1. Bulgarian Balehead
  January 9, 2013
  I don't know, mate, everyone's entitled to their opinion, it's just that I can't see how Keaton was so convincing to you as Bruce Wayne when he barely had a backstory developed in Batman and Batman Returns. I can have no emotional attachment to a character with little background and even less on-screen development. As the guy beneath me says, Burton's films were much more focused on aesthetics and visuals than plot or characters. As a matter of fact, that's the same problem I have with all of Burton's films. It is precisely because of the backstory given to Bruce Wayne that I absolutely love Batman Begins and I might even take it over The Dark Knight. You get to see the entire emotional journey of this guy, from childhood to maturity, explore it, share it, see what made him who he is and how he decided to be exactly Batman. The dialogues with Alfred, Ducard/Ra's Al Ghul, even with Rachel Dawes and MOST of all the scene with Carmine Falcone really show us how Bruce Wayne came about, formed his system of moral believes and decided to firmly stand behind them by adopting the persona of The Batman. Sorry, I don't mean to offend you, but in my opinion Keaton would never be able to convincingly portray that sort of character transformation the way Bale did. Bale simply is a superior actor on every level.
  1. FantasyBoy
    January 9, 2013
    Christian Bale is a god! He's excellent at everything he does.

Thurisaz

January 8, 2013

One of the reasons why I don't care for Burton's films was because they were more focused on the aesthetics than story and the character development was rather shallow. Batman Forever may have been darker and explored Batman's origins, but if Burton was still on board, I doubt it would have been as rich as Nolan's stories.

I also must say that Batman Forever is worse than Batman & Robin. At least that was meant to be disposable. The trouble with Batman Forever is that it had the perfect ingredients for an awesome Batman film. You have Bruce struggling with his dual identity, taking in a boy who's walking in his same path, dating a psychiatrist, hounded by a villain whose visibly split psyche, and another who has sussed out his identity. That would have been incredible had it been churned with a better script and given the proper direction.

Shark
January 10, 2013
In my above comment I highlighted what Tim burton's version of batman forever and it would have been very different from Joel shumacher's version and pretty much a repeat of the same story of the previous films.

sultan

January 9, 2013

slipknot0131 is totaly right

Thomasbonnie

January 10, 2013

I have always loved Keaton as batman & bruce because he's the last person on earth you think could actually be a superhero, forever and B&R were cringe material nolan took the batman films to a level i doubt we'll ever see again.

Thomasbonnie

January 10, 2013

Do you's think they'll follow up the Robin story?

Mary M D'Agostino

January 10, 2013

I'm with you Michael I actually do not like the new Batman Movies I rather have Michael Keaton as Batman!! Michael is My all time favorite Batman No One and I mean No One can play Batman Like Michael Keaton.. I didn't even see the other batman Movies Not without Michael Keaton as Batman...