Michael Keaton has no time for Marvel or DC films, despite starring in a few himself.
The “Batman Returns” alum is reprising his role of Bruce Wayne in the upcoming DC installment “The Flash,” marking Keaton’s first time wearing the Batsuit since the 1992 Tim Burton film and 1989’s “Batman” prior.
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To note, Ben Affleck is also re-donning the Caped Crusader costume for “The Flash” movie that sets up a multiverse aspect of the DCU, not to be outdone by Marvel’s latest phase of time-bending alternate worlds explored in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”
When asked by Variety why Keaton decided to join the DCU, the “Dopesick” star simply said it “seemed like fun” to be part of the superhero franchise again. “I was curious what it would be like after this many years. Not so much me doing it — obviously, some of that — but I was just curious about it, weirdly, socially,” Keaton explained. “This whole thing is gigantic. They have their entirely own world. So, I like to look at it as an outsider, thinking, ‘Holy moly!’”
And while Keaton starred as the Vulture in Sony’s Marvel film “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” he admitted to not having finished watching a Marvel or DC movie to date.
“I know people don’t believe this, that I’ve never seen an entire version of any of those movies — any Marvel movie, any other. And I don’t say that I don’t watch that because I’m highbrow — trust me! It’s not that,” Keaton continued. “It’s just that there’s very little things I watch. I start watching something, and think it is great and I watch three episodes, but I have other shit to do!”
He felt compelled to sign on to “The Flash” because of the script by “Birds of Prey” screenwriter Christina Hodson. “The writing was actually really good. So I thought, why not?” Keaton said. “It’s cool to drop in and I’m curious to see if I can pull it off.”
Thankfully, Keaton teased that his version of Batman will be just as dark as the one from Tim Burton’s original films.
Keaton’s latest remarks double down on what he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021, saying he hadn’t watched an “entire” superhero movie after his first “Batman” film with Burton. “I just never got around to it. So you’re talking to a guy who wasn’t in the zeitgeist of that whole world,” he explained.
Still, there will be plenty more superhero movies for Keaton to binge…eventually.
“They’ll be doing Marvel movies forever,” he told THR at the time. “I’ll be dead, and they’ll still be doing Marvel movies.”
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