Originally published January 4, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
When Tim Burton left Batman Forever, Michael Keaton followed suit, and now we know why.
On The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter Podcast, when asked what prompted his exit from the project, the Spider-Man: Homecoming villain sugarcoated nothing.
“Let me simplify it for you: it sucked,” said Keaton. “The script was never good, I didn’t understand why he [Joel Schumacher] wanted to do what he wanted to do, and I knew it was in trouble when he said ‘why does everything have to be so dark?'”
The Batman and Batman Returns star was ultimately replaced by Val Kilmer for Batman Forever, with George Clooney then taking on the role for Schumacher’s second effort, 1997’s Batman & Robin.
Keaton will return to the world of comic book movies this July, starring as The Vulture opposite Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
