Michael Keaton Doesn’t Care That ‘Batgirl’ Didn’t Get Released

A year or two ago it looked like Michael Keaton was on the verge of a full-fledged and long term comeback as the new (old) Batman. He co-starred as an older version of the character in The Flash, and then filmed a similar supporting turn in HBO Max’s Batgirl film. For a moment, it seemed like Keaton was poised to be DC’s version of Nick Fury; the older, takes-no-B.S. veteran hero who helps new heroes find their place in the universe.

That all changed overnight when James Gunn and Peter Safran were hired as the new CEOs of DC Studios. The Flash got heavily reworked in reshoots and Keaton — who, according to various reports, was initially supposed to survive the film — wound up getting killed off. And then Batgirl wound up getting killed off too — by DC and Warner Bros. Discovery, which shelved that movie entirely as a tax write-off. Suddenly, Michael Keaton’s Batman was Bat-retired all over again. And no one got to see what he did in the second of his two big older Batman movies.

So how does Keaton himself feel about all that? Surprisingly good, actually! Keaton told GQ that he “didn’t care one way or another” if Batgirl ever saw the light of day. To him the situation was a “big, fun, nice check.”

And then, per GQ, Keaton started “rubbing his fingers together in the universal gesture for ‘moolah.’”

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Keaton did note that he liked the directors of Batgirl, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, calling them “nice guys.”

“I pull for them. I want them to succeed, and I think they felt very badly, and that made me feel bad,” he added. As for him, though, he noted “I’m good.”

The only sensible reaction to such a quote is to stand back and admire the honesty of it all — and perhaps to contemplate this Krusty the Clown quote from The Simpsons.

Keaton can next be seen in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which is scheduled to open in theaters on September 6.