George Clooney Almost Starred In This Polarizing Michael Keaton Comedy

George Clooney has made a couple of truly abysmal movies over the course of his career as an actor, but there's one apocalyptically bad holiday movie that he almost starred in that would have put even "Batman & Robin" to shame. According to an article from the LA Times, Clooney was originally set to star as the titular character in the 1998 Christmas comedy "Jack Frost" — a role that eventually went to fellow former Batman Michael Keaton. "Jack Frost" is horrible, with only a 19% Fresh Rotten Tomatoes critic score, because it's not really all that funny, and it has a total downer of an ending. Seriously, I remember being so furious at the ending as a child that I told my mom we should ask for our money back ... I guess I was a critic even then.

Keaton eventually took on the role of Jack Frost, who dies in a car crash and possesses his son's snowman to try and bond with him, but if the puppet looks a little more like Clooney, there's a good reason. According to Jim Henson's Creature Shop General Manager Matt J. Britton, who helped create the special effects for the film, the puppet was actually based on ole George!  

In an interview for the LA Times, Britton shared that the making of "Jack Frost" was a little challenging because originally Clooney had been attached to star, with "The Evil Dead" director Sam Raimi at the helm. While it's wild to imagine what that movie might have looked like, instead Keaton and director Troy Miller joined pretty late in the production process. That led to some headaches, as Britton explained: 

"We sort of had to play catch-up. Once it became Michael Keaton, we didn't change the head completely. We did some signature things to the chin and to the lips because Michael Keaton has this little mouth and talks out of the front of his mouth. You can only do as much to reflect the performer."

"Jack Frost" isn't Keaton's worst movie, surprisingly, but it's far from being one of his best. Keaton mostly just lends his voice to the puppet, and his performance is fine, but the movie is so schmaltzy and by-the-numbers that it's just about impossible to actually enjoy. It's kind of like the similarly depressing dead-Dad-in-a-dog's-body movie "Fluke," except that it is somehow even better because at least there's a cute dog and not the nightmarish snow-based love-child of George Clooney and Michael Keaton in a red scarf. At least with Raimi, the slapstick would have been good, but "Jack Frost" is simply awful, regardless of who voiced the snowy lead.