George Clooney is an open book when it comes to Batman & Robin. After making his one and only outing as the Caped Crusader in 1997, the actor has spoken frequently about the film, and famously said that “it’s so bad that it actually hurts to watch,” while appearing on The Howard Stern Show in 2020.
More recently, Clooney, who shares eight-year-old twins Ella and Alexander with his wife, Amal Clooney, revealed that his son had mocked him, albeit unknowingly, for his performance in the franchise.
Speaking with MovieWeb ahead of the release of his new movie, Jay Kelly, Clooney was asked which of his projects he’d love to get a second chance on.
“Batman & Robin!” he replied. “My son actually dressed as Batman for Halloween. 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.'”
A film which underperformed at the box office despite its hefty budget of a reported $160 million, Batman & Robin was panned by critics and fans alike following its initial release. Currently, the superhero flick holds a score of 11% on Rotten Tomatoes, and in 2010, it was voted the worst film of all time by readers of Empire magazine (via The Guardian).
Warner Bros.
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Extremely vocal about the movie, Clooney has addressed the film’s failure in multiple interviews, noting that it served as a turning point in his career. In a 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the A-lister was asked to name the film which had the biggest influence on his craft.
“It’s really easy to pick: Batman & Robin. That’s not a joke,” Clooney explained. “Up until that moment, I was an actor only concerned with finding work. After the failure of that film creatively, I understood that I needed to take control of the films I made, not just the role. My next three films were Out of Sight, Three Kings and O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Warner Bros.
Clooney has also noted that several of his fellow cast and crew members felt just as much regret about Batman & Robin as he did. “The truth of the matter is, I was bad in it. Akiva Goldsman — who’s won the Oscar for writing since then — he wrote the screenplay. And it’s a terrible screenplay, he’ll tell you,” the actor said on The Howard Stern Show.
“I’m terrible in it, I’ll tell you. Joel Schumacher, who just passed away, directed it, and he’d say, ‘Yeah, it didn’t work.’ We all whiffed on that one.”
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Megan is a freelance news reporter for Digital Spy.Â