Michael Keaton on the Dark Days of Batman
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News Simon Brew 5/16/2011 at 1:36AM
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Michael Keaton has been looking back at playing Batman for Tim Burton, and why he walked away from Batman Forever…
There's a really interesting interview that's appeared over at the Los Angeles Times, where Michael Keaton has been looking back at his two Batman films, and the third movie that never happened.
Specifically looking back at the 1989 Batman film, directed by Tim Burton, that pretty much transformed the cinematic value of comic book properties, Keaton recalled, "It was an extremely difficult undertaking and Tim is a shy guy, especially back then, and there was so much pressure."
He added, "There was no guarantee that any of this was going to play correctly when it was all said and done. There had never been a movie like it before. There was a lot of risk, too, with Jack looking the way he did and me stepping out in this new way. The pressure was on everybody. You could feel it."
Keaton talks about several movies in the interview, describing the mighty Beetlejuice as "incomparable". And when he turns to Batman Returns, he does concede that "It wasn't as satisfying to me when I saw it, but maybe that's because the bar was set so high on the first one."
You might recall, though, that Keaton had been expected to return to play Batman for a third time, in Batman Forever (to the point where Rene Russo had, apparently, been lined up as his love interest in the movie, a role that had to be changed). Keaton was linked with a salary of around $14m at the time, but walked away from the payday and the project.
He told the Times,"I knew we were in trouble in talks for the third one when certain people started the conversation with ‘Why does it have to be so dark?' ‘Why does he have to be so depressed?' ‘Shouldn't there be more color in this thing?' I knew I was headed for trouble and that it wasn't a road I was going to go down."
A wise move. Keaton passed the cape on to Val Kilmer for Batman Forever, who tends to be the on-screen Batman that nobody talks about.
I think after the 1966 Bat mobile I'm done collecting vehicles...Until they make a 1/6 scale knight Rider then I'm back in the game baby 
