The Flash Director Andy Muschietti Let Michael Keaton Take The Batman Reins
30 years ago, Michael Keaton walked away from Batman. The man who'd helped establish a new blockbuster blueprint with 1989's "Batman," and then terrified kids nationwide with 1992's "Batman Returns," departed the franchise after director Joel Schumacher was brought in to lighten things up. And a big part of why Keaton called it quits had to do with his personal vision of what Batman represented.
Back in the late-'80s when director Tim Burton was gearing up for "Batman," he and Keaton met to discuss their ideas for the movie, discovering they were both aligned in their view of the character as a darker, psychologically troubled figure. Keaton had mapped out a backstory for Bruce Wayne that led him to play the part of the tortured billionaire as just that, eschewing the "playboy" persona that was a crucial element of subsequent portrayals. Keaton's Wayne was odd, brooding, and a little erratic. You believed he was just crazy enough to launch a one-man crusade against crime dressed as a bat, especially in the context of Burton and production designer Anton Furst's industrial nightmare vision of Gotham City.
Things only got more nightmarish in "Batman Returns," which featured the titular hero committing multiple homicides and a plot that involved drowning the first-born sons of Gotham. And despite it being the best Batman movie (let's just be honest, here), Warner Bros. decided a change was required, hence the aforementioned arrival of Joel Schumacher. Unfortunately, the director's ambitions didn't necessarily match up with Keaton's conception of Bruce Wayne as a tortured loner. And so he was out.
Now, he's returning as Batman for "The Flash," and thankfully, it looks as though the Oscar-nominee was once again given free rein to play the character the way he wanted.
Keaton took the lead on set
"The Flash" sees Ezra Miller's Barry Allen travel to an alternate universe in a bid to prevent his mother's death, unknowingly causing untold multiversal chaos in the process. In this alternate timeline, Michael Keaton's Batman awaits, ready to help Barry on his quest to right his wrongs and restore order. And as the various Bat-suits in "The Flash" trailer reveal, this version of Keaton's Dark Knight has had quite the storied career since we last saw him, before hanging up the cowl for good and retiring.
"The Flash" director Andy Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti have spoken about Keaton donning the Batsuit once again, recalling how the actor wanted pictures of him as Batman to show his grandson. They also remembered Keaton taking a quiet moment to himself when he first stepped onto the Batcave set, constructed at England's famous Leavesden studios, suggesting the significance of the whole thing wasn't lost on the veteran star.
After this reintroduction to the role, it seems Andy Muschietti basically turned things over to Keaton, giving him free rein to rediscover that troubled loner from "Batman" '89 and "Returns." The director spoke about this in a recent interview with Pink Villa, where he revealed he'd had in-depth conversations with Keaton about the character prior to shooting and was determined to hear all the actor's thoughts on how to portray a Bruce Wayne who was 30 years older. By the time it came to actually filming, the filmmaker explained how he "tried to not interfere too much with [Keaton] as an actor," adding that he was "so happy [Keaton] was there to portray Bruce and Batman."
We need more of Keaton's Wayne
Beyond allowing Michael Keaton to take the lead when it came to portraying Batman, Muschietti also revealed that part of the reason the actor returned for "The Flash" was the fact that, in the story, Bruce Wayne had become somewhat of a recluse before Barry Allen stumbled into his world. As the multiple trailers for "The Flash" reveal, the Wayne Manor of this world is basically a mausoleum, strewn with remnants of Bruce Wayne's past life, a cowl discarded on the stately home's marble floor.
All of which has me very excited because it fits so well with Keaton's original vision for Bruce Wayne. Whereas he was forced into public life as both Bruce and Batman in the first two movies, only hinting at his underlying psychological unease in classic moments such as the "let's get nuts" scene, now we get to see Keaton's Wayne completely subsumed by his lonerism. Just how much of the movie focuses on that aspect of the story remains unclear, but I hope we get a decent look at Bruce's life before Barry arrives, just because it's such a tantalizing prospect to see what Keaton can do with all the regret that must haunt the character's twilight years. To be honest, they should have just given Keaton his own movie to explore all of that in his own time. Alas, we'll have to settle for "The Flash," which should be an exciting blast through the past at the very least.