When The Flash hits theaters next year, it’ll end up featuring two different actors who’ve played Batman in their careers. One of those actors doesn’t happen to be George Clooney, who admits he wasn’t asked to appear in the feature after joking he had “destroyed” the franchise with his previous performance.
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While appearing at an advanced screening of his upcoming film The Tender Bar, Clooney admitted to Variety that Warner Brothers simply didn’t ask him to return.
“They didn’t ask me,” Clooney told the trade. “When you destroy a franchise the way I did, usually they look the other way when ‘The Flash’ comes by.”
Batman and Robin is Joel Schumacher’s infamously panned film where Clooney played the Caped Crusader alongside Chris O’Donnell’s Robin.
In the same interview, Clooney’s wife Amal said her husband wouldn’t allow her to watch it. “There are certain films I just go, ‘I want my wife to have some respect for me,’” the actor added.
The two previous Batmen that will appear, however, are Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck.
“[The Flash] was a really nice way to revisit that as the prior experience had been difficult,” Affleck said of his return at the same event. “This was really lovely. Really fun… I had a great time… I love Ezra and I had a chance to see Jason [Momoa], who’s over there making ‘Aquaman [and the Lost Kingdom],’”
He added, “I’m probably under some gag order that I’m not even aware that I probably just violated and I’m now going to be sued.”
Affleck ended up appearing as the character in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. At one point he was also set to play the character in his own solo movie, though those plans changed once Justice Leagued underperformed at the box office. Matt Reeves is now directing a standalone reimagingin of the character with Roebrt Pattinson in the lead role.
DC’s The Flash movie will be in theaters on November 4, 2022.
