Michael Keaton recently told GQ magazine that he wasn’t too upset when Warner Bros. scrapped the release of “Batgirl,” in which the actor reprised his iconic role of Batman opposite Leslie Grace in the title role. The studio shelved the film in Aug. 2022 in a cost-cutting move. The $90 million-budgeted “Batgirl” was already shot and through post-production when the decision was made, which came as a shock to the industry. Variety reported that a tax incentive was a driving force behind the decision to kill “Batgirl.”
“No, I didn’t care one way or another. Big, fun, nice check,” Keaton said when asked if he was disappointed in the film’s axing. GQ notes that Keaton was also “rubbing his fingers together in the universal gesture for ‘moolah.’”
“I like those boys. They’re nice guys,” he added on a softer note about “Batgirl” directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. “I pull for them. I want them to succeed, and I think they felt very badly, and that made me feel bad. Me? I’m good.”
“Batgirl” was one of two comic book tentpoles that was supposed to mark the return of Keaton’s Bruce Wayne/Batman, a role he first played in Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman” and reprised in 1992’s “Batman Returns.” The second tentpole was “The Flash,” which did get a theatrical release from Warner Bros. in July 2023 but bombed at the box office with $271 million worldwide. Keaton spoke to GQ earlier this year about the backlash that erupted when his Batman casting was first announced in the late 1980s. Comic book fans sent around 50,000 lets to Warner Bros. complaining about the selection.
“The fact that Tim said ‘That guy, I want that guy’ … The fact that people cared one way or another so much is still baffling. But that was a ballsy move on his part,” Keaton said at the time.
In his new GQ interview, Keaton again praised Burton. The two recently worked together yet again on “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the long-awaited sequel to 1988’s “Beetlejuice.”
“Tim deserves enormous credit. He changed everything,” Keaton said. “I can’t necessarily say this, but there’s a strong possibility there is no Marvel Universe, there is no DC Universe, without Tim Burton. He was doubted and questioned.”
That Keaton would reprise Batman in “Batgirl” in part for the paycheck might some surprise some of his fans, but his philosophy in Hollywood has always been that it’s a business first. It’s why he wasn’t too thrilled with the narrative around his Oscar-nominated turn in 2014’s “Birdman,” which the press billed largely as an acting comeback for Keaton.
“A really, really, really smart guy, a guy I liked a lot, said, ‘Comeback—that’s the story,’” Keaton told GQ. “I went, ‘Honestly, it’s kind of bullshit.’”
As Keaton pointed out, he never stopped acting and always took roles to keep the paychecks coming in. The actor had four years of consecutive releases by the time “Birdman” opened in 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” brought him Oscar buzz and acclaim.
“I thought I could make that [comeback] story up, but I knew I’m going to be bullshitting every time I talk about it,” Keaton said. “By the way, I know business. I like business. Doesn’t bother me. You go, ‘This is a business, man.’”
“I never panic,” Keaton added about his career strategy. “If you get desperate, you’re fucked. Don’t ever get desperate. You can get insecure and nervous, and go, ‘Wow, boy, I’m not doing so great right now.’ But when you get desperate, you’re dead.”
Head over to GQ’s website to read Keaton’s latest profile in its entirety.
