Michael Keaton ‘Didn’t Care’ When Batgirl Got Canceled

IT’S BEEN A little more than two years since Warner Bros. made the decision to cancel the release of Batgirl for cost-cutting reasons, despite the film being complete and based on a beloved DC Comics property, and reactions are still trickling in. While we’ll never actually see the movie, we do know that Michael Keaton—who played Batman in 1989’s Batman and 1992’s Batman Returns—filmed a part where he returned as the Caped Crusader. And as it turns out, he’s not all that broken up about how it all played out.

“I didn’t care one way or another,” he told GQ in a new profile. He continued, saying “big, fun, nice check,” before making a “moolah” signal with his fingers, according to writer Gabriella Paiella.

After a pause, though, Keaton expressed a bit of empathy for Batgirl directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who recently directed Bad Boys: Ride or Die. “I like those boys. They’re nice guys,” he said. “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.”

While Keaton’s return as Batman was initially supposed to come across several films (it was compared to Samuel L. Jackson’s role as Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), he ended up only filming two of them—the Batgirl role that was canceled, and the disappointing The Flash. It was wonderful to see him reprise his iconic role in the latter movie, but it underwhelmed at the box office, was weighed down by the many controversies surrounding star Ezra Miller, and came during a lame duck era when it was known that new DC Studios head James Gunn was planning to reboot the franchise. It’s fair to say his return didn’t go exactly as planned.

Despite becoming perhaps his signature role—Beetlejuice, which he’ll reprise in September’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, would be another—Keaton was actually considered a questionable choice when Tim Burton first picked him to lead his Batman film. But it was a smash, eventually even inspiring his role in the Oscar-nominated film Birdman (where he played a frustrated actor who formerly played a superhero).

But he still looks back on it all fondly. “I’m nothing but only respectful and grateful, 100%,” he said in the GQ piece.“And proud of it actually, because I like to prove everybody wrong. It’s fun for me.”

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