Why George Clooney won't let his wife see his version of Batman
The actor is convinced that he "destroyed a franchise."
Almost 25 years after its release, Batman & Robin, the fourth film in the batman franchise, is still in the news. And not for exactly the best reasons. Now Amal Clooney revealed that her husband, the celebrity George Clooney, is so ashamed of her performance that he won't let her see her.
Clooney has just presented The Tender Bar, his new film as director, with a special screening in Los Angeles. In a joke train, on the red carpet they asked him if he would reprise his role as Batman in the upcoming The Flash, where Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck will appear with their respective versions of the Gotham City vigilante.
"They didn't ask me," Clooney replied. "When you destroy a franchise the way I did, they usually look the other way when an opportunity like The Flash comes along." Beside him, his wife Amal denounced: "She won't let me see her."
To which Clooney explained, "There are certain movies where I just say, 'I want my wife to respect me.' And when Amal replied that surely her twins Alexander and Ella will want to see him, the actor replied, "It's bad when your four-year-old says, 'This sucks.' That could be painful. "
A resounding failure
Batman & Robin was, in addition to being bad, also a commercial failure. Director Joel Schumacher's intention was to bring the visual aspect of movies closer to comics, but fans didn't quite welcome the novelty. Schumacher lamented that he had listened to Warner's marketing executives, who wanted it to be a boys' movie.
Anyway, the film went down in history for having highlighted Clooney's nipples in the superhero's black suit, something that led to a controversy as great as it was absurd: “I couldn't believe it, I thought, are they fucking me? I think that will figure in my epitaph. They will remember me for that, ”said Schumacher, who died last year.
In another interview, from 2017, Schumacher said that he wanted to "apologize to all the fans who were disappointed" by Batman & Robin, assuring that he felt "as if he had murdered a baby."
For the part of him, Clooney is remembered by many as one of the worst versions of Batman. The experience was so traumatic for him that he advised his friend Affleck not to take the role when it was offered to him for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).
"I was a huge failure and they bombed me," Clooney explained. "Ben did not listen to me and ended up doing a great job. I was wrong," acknowledged the actor.
Clooney-Affleck reunion
The Tender Bar marks the reunion between Clooney and Affleck after they teamed up to produce Argo, the 2012 political thriller that won three Oscars, including the best picture award. Clooney joked that it took them nine years to make another movie together because Affleck "ruined the Batman franchise that I made so solid."
The film is based on the homonymous memoir by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist JR Moehringer about his relationship with his uncle Charlie (played by Affleck), who became a father figure to him growing up in Long Island. Lily Rabe plays his mother, while Christopher Lloyd plays his grandfather.
The Tender Bar will premiere in the United States on December 17, and will be available globally on Amazon Prime Video on January 7, 2022.
