Michael Keaton recently told GQ that he wasn’t too upset when Warner Bros. canceled the release of “Batgirl,” in which the actor reprised his iconic role as Batman opposite Leslie Grace in the lead role. The studio shelved the film in August 2022 in a cost-cutting move. The $90 million-budgeted “Batgirl” was already in post-production when the decision was made, sending the industry into a tailspin. diverse The tax incentive was reportedly the driving force behind the decision to kill off Batgirl.
“No, I didn’t care in any way. It was a big, fun, beautiful check,” Keaton said when asked if he was disappointed the film was canceled. GQ notes that Keaton was also “rubbing his fingers together in the universal sign for ‘money.’”
“I love these guys. They're good guys. I support them. I want them to succeed, and I think they felt really bad, and that made me feel bad. As for me? I'm fine,” he added, more tenderly, about the directors of “Batgirl,” Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.
Batgirl was one of two major comic book movies that were supposed to mark Keaton’s return to the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman, a role he first played in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman and reprised in 1992’s Batman Returns. The other was The Flash, which was released by Warner Bros. in July 2023 but flopped at the box office, grossing $271 million worldwide. Keaton spoke to GQ earlier this year about the backlash that erupted when his casting as Batman was first announced in the late 1980s. Comic book fans sent some 50,000 letters to Warner Bros. complaining about the casting.
“The fact that Tim said, ‘This guy, I want this guy’… the fact that people were somehow that interested is still baffling,” Keaton said at the time. “But it was a bold move on his part.”
In his new interview with GQ, Keaton once again praised Burton. The two recently worked together again on “Beetlejuice,” the long-awaited sequel to 1988’s “Beetlejuice.”
“Tim deserves a tremendous amount of credit,” Keaton said. “He changed everything. I can't necessarily say this, but there's a strong possibility that there wouldn't be a Marvel Universe or a DC Universe without Tim Burton. He was questioned and questioned.”
Some Keaton fans may be surprised by the idea of reprising his Batman role in “Batgirl” partly for the money, but his philosophy in Hollywood has always been that it comes down to business first. That’s why he wasn’t too happy with the narrative around his Oscar-nominated role in 2014’s “Birdman,” which the press largely touted as Keaton’s acting comeback.
“A very smart man, a man I loved very much, said to me, ‘Come back here — this is the story,’” Keaton told GQ. “I said, ‘Honestly, this is kind of bullshit.’”
As Keaton points out, he never stopped acting and was always taking roles to keep the paychecks rolling in. The actor had four years of back-to-back releases under his belt by the time Birdman hit theaters, including films like RoboCop and Need for Speed , so it's not like he was gone or out of the spotlight by the time Birdman hit the Oscar buzz.
“I thought I could do it. [comeback] “I was talking about it, but I knew I was going to be talking nonsense every time I talked about it,” Keaton said. “By the way, I know business. I love business. It doesn’t bother me. You can say, ‘This is business, man.’”
“I never panic,” Keaton added of his career strategy. “If you get desperate, you’re in trouble. Never give up. You can feel insecure and stressed, and you say, ‘Oh my God, I’m not doing well right now.’ But when you get desperate, you’re dead.”
Visit GQ to read Keaton's full recent profile.
