14 DAY TRIAL // Take that, Christian Bale! The Oscar-winning actor revealed just recently that, while he wouldn’t have come back to Batman, he was shocked to hear another actor would be playing the character so soon, Ben Affleck in Zack Snyder’s “Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice.”
The shock was so great that – picture this – Bale “stared into nothing” for about 30 minutes, according to the actor himself, speaking in an interview to promote “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” his latest movie.
Michael Keaton isn’t like that: he played the Caped Crusader long before Bale, in Tim Burton’s “Batman” in 1989, and he admits in a new interview that he feels no jealousy towards Ben Affleck’s Batman. Or Batfleck, as the Internet dubbed him.
Michael Keaton is OK with the new Batman
Keaton is getting considerable awards buzz for his role in “Birdman,” for which he’s even considered a shoe-in for Best Actor at the upcoming Academy Awards. Speaking with Shortlist, he promises a weepy and emotional speech if his name will be called on stage on what is, without a doubt, industry’s biggest awards gala.
On a less serious note, he talks to the trade publication about Batman and what it meant for him to see the cape and the cowl handed over to a new guy. Unlike Bale, Keaton is OK with it – because he knows there can be only one.
“Do you know why? Because I’m Batman. I’m very secure in that,” he says.
Makes sense: no one would feel jealous of another person doing the same thing if they knew they did the best that could ever be done with that thing. But Keaton is joking, make no doubt about that.
“Tim [Burton] changed, or started, everything. And I’m proud of the choice I made, in terms of how to play Batman,” he says on the same topic. Still, he hasn’t watched a single superhero movie from start to finish, so he’s really no expert in this field.
Much is riding on Ben Affleck’s shoulders
This Michael Keaton interview, as fun as it might be in its approach of the Batfleck topic, confirms something we knew all along: Affleck’s casting ruffled many feathers, including Bale’s, who felt an understandable sense of ownership over the character and was not ready to see it remade yet.
More importantly, Batfleck ruffled the feathers of the fans, many of whom still don’t believe he’d make a convincing Batman, especially not after Bale’s portrayal in Chris Nolan’s near-perfect trilogy.
Affleck is more aware than everybody else about how much is weighing on his shoulders in terms of delivering a performance that will be memorable, and at the same time, that will justify his involvement in future installments in the franchise.
Warner Bros. sees “Dawn of Justice” not as a sequel to “Man of Steel” but as the first movie in the “Justice League” franchise. Word online even says that this new Batman might get his own spinoff film(s), if Affleck delivers, which would put Affleck on the list of highest paid actors for some years to come.
There’s a lot of pressure to deliver, but even if he does, Michael Keaton isn’t sweating it. He’s the boss Batman.
