Over thirty years ago, Tim Burton reinvented Batman. He banished all references to the camp, cult ’60s TV show which had defined the Caped Crusader with cheesy one-liners, costumes that looked like pajamas, and rubber sharks. Burton’s film is zany fun, but there is a darkness, and a nastiness that was new. The fascist, oppressive architecture of Anton Furst’s Gotham City set the narrative firmly in a deranged hellscape. This environment was an unlikely abode for Adam West’s Batman. However, Burton’s choice for Batman seemed just as out of place for many Batfans and critics at the time.
Keaton Wasn’t Burton’s First Choice
Michael Keaton, known in the ’80s as a comedy actor, did not exactly fit the image of the Dark Knight. Burton was aware of Keaton’s talents, but even he only considered Keaton for the part after Batman producer Jon Peters pointed out the actor’s suitability.
Despite working with Keaton a year earlier on Beetlejuice, Burton had other actors on his short list. Mel Gibson, who had recently become a megastar, expressed interest but was committed to filming Lethal Weapon 2. TV star Pierce Brosnan was also considered, but he turned down the role without much consideration. “I went and met with Tim Burton for the role of Batman,” the actor told Cinemablend. “But I just couldn’t really take it seriously. Any man who wears his underpants outside his pants just cannot be taken seriously. That was my foolish take on it. It was a joke, I thought. But how wrong was I?” Luckily, Brosnan got a second chance to star in another big franchise six years later, when he accepted the role of James Bond in Goldeneye (1995).
Burton’s most unusual choice for the cowl and cape was comedian Bill Murray, the star of Ghostbusters. Thankfully, it fell through, even though Murray said years later he wanted the part. Surprisingly, Burton was not the first director to consider Murray for Batman. But he was the last!
Batfans Denounce Keaton
However, once Peters suggested Keaton, Burton knew he had his Batman. Keaton accepted and a press release unveiled Keaton as the Dark Knight.
Batfans everywhere went nuts. Over 50,000 fan letters decrying Keaton’s casting flooded Warner Bros offices. The fallout even tanked the film studio’s share price. Fans ripped up publicity material at comic conventions. Not surprisingly, Warner Bros was not exactly thrilled with the idea. Keaton just didn’t seem to have the screen presence to match Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Even Adam West publicly declared he was a better choice than Keaton.
Burton agreed to go through the motions and audition other actors. He recalled the controversy in his book, Burton on Burton:
“In my mind I kept reading reviews that said, ‘Jack’s terrific, but the unknown as Batman is nothing special.’ So I saw a zillion people and the thing that kept going through my mind when I saw these action-adventure hero types come into the office was, ‘I just can’t see them putting on a bat-suit. I can’t see it.’ I was seeing these big macho guys, and then thinking of them with pointy ears, and it was, ‘Why would this big macho, Arnold Schwarzenegger-type person dress up as a bat for God’s sake?'”
Burton believes fans were worried his Batman would be similar to the campy series, since Keaton had starred in movies like Mr Mom and Night Shift. But he could see Keaton as Batman. He knew he was the right fit:
“A bat is this wild thing. I’d worked with Michael before and so I thought he would be perfect, because he’s got that look in his eye. It’s there in Beetlejuice. It’s like that guy you could see putting on a bat-suit; he does it because he needs to, because he’s not this gigantic, strapping macho man. It’s all about transformation. Then it started to make sense to me. All of a sudden the whole thing clicked, I could see the pointy ears; the image and the psychology all made sense. Taking Michael and making him Batman just underscored the whole split personality thing which is really what I think the movie’s about.”
Fans cries were soon quelled after Warner Bros hurriedly cobbled together a teaser trailer of Keaton in action. Brief glimpses of his Bruce Wayne and Batman showed just how capable he is in the role.
The trailer raised Bat-Mania to a fever pitch, and it’s clear Keaton embodied the Bruce Wayne/Batman split personality Burton wanted his Caped Crusader to possess.
Keaton Understood Burton’s Batman
All of Burton’s films have an autobiographical element to them, so this characteristic of Batman is something he relates to:
“Having those two sides, a light side and a dark one, and not being able to resolve them–that’s a feeling that’s not uncommon. So while I can see it’s got a lot of Michael Keaton in it because he’s actually doing it, I also see certain aspects of myself in the character…I mean, this whole split personality thing is so much a part of every person that it’s just amazing to me that more people don’t consciously understand it. Everybody has several sides to their personality, no one is one thing. Especially in America, people often present themselves as one thing, but are really something else.Which is symbolic of the Batman character.”
Keaton certainly understood this. In many respects he plays the character as a dichotomy. The bumbling, eccentric, distracted Bruce Wayne hides his darker Batman alter ego for the most part. Though Keaton’s Bruce Wayne does show flashes of a more disturbed personality.
“If you look at Michael,” said Burton, “he’s got all those wheels and that wild energy in his eyes which would compel him to put on a bat-suit. It’s like, if he had gotten therapy he wouldn’t be putting on a bat-suit. He didn’t, so this is his therapy.”
Keaton’s performance is clearly what Burton envisioned for the character. The combination of Keaton’s performance with Burton’s Gothic theatrics produced a Batman that was part Phantom of the Opera and Dracula.
Keaton’s performance is only slightly upstaged by Nicholson’s Joker. Keaton was never going to upstage Jack. But he did prove his detractors wrong. Thirty years on, Burton’s choice for Batman still ranks as one of the best incarnations of the Caped Crusader.