Even as the landscape of Hollywood and filmmaking evolves right before our eyes, George Clooney remains one of the biggest movie stars working today. The two-time Oscar-winning actor has starred in immensely acclaimed movies like Fantastic Mr. Fox, Burn After Reading, and From Dusk Till Dawn, as well as the beloved heist film Ocean’s Eleven and its increasingly worse sequels, plus way too many Nespresso adverts to count. But they can’t all be hits, and George Clooney knows that better than most. The actor has famously apologized for his leading role in 1997’s critically panned Batman & Robin, and 28 years after the film was released, Clooney still feels guilty for starring in the stinker.
During an interview with MovieWeb to promote his new movie Jay Kelly (which opened in select theaters on November 14 and streams on Netflix on December 5), George Clooney once again looked back at Batman & Robin like a dark shadow looming over his filmography. Second chances are a major theme of Jay Kelly, and George Clooney wishes he had a second chance to read the Batman & Robin script and promptly turn it down. When asked what moment from his career he’d like to take a second shot at, Clooney swiftly answered, “Batman & Robin!”
George Clooney’s loathing for Batman & Robin even extends to his children. “My son actually dressed as Batman for Halloween,” he continued. “He hasn’t seen the movie. I said, ‘You know, I was Batman.’ He’s like, ‘Not really.’ I was like, ‘You have no idea how right you are.'”
George Clooney’s Batman Has One A-List Fan
To call Batman & Robin a flop would be an understatement. Joel Schumacher directed the movie from a script penned by Akiva Goldsman, which also starred Chris O’Donnell, Uma Thurman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alicia Silverstone, and Michael Gough. The film grossed just over $238 million worldwide, against an estimated budget of $160 million. Neither critics nor audiences were kind to the film, as it holds a ghastly Rotten Tomatoes score of 11%, with an only slightly better audience rating of 16%.
However, in the decades since, Batman & Robin has garnered a cult following. No one has quite deluded themselves into thinking it’s a good film. However, the movie is appreciated on a so-bad-it’s-good level, similar to The Room and the films of Neil Breen. But, among that cult following is one major A-lister with very close ties to Batman. Robert Pattinson previously talked about his time auditioning for the role of Batman in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. During the audition, Pattinson got to try on the past Batman masks, including Clooney’s, and he confirmed that the Batman & Robin star’s smelled the best. We brought this up to George Clooney during the interview, to which he replied:
“Oh, you see, I have a good-smelling Bat-cowl, and I have great rubber nipples too.”
- Runtime
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125minutes
- Writers
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Peter Tomasi