Michael Keaton Explains Why He Wanted to Return as Batman

For Batman fans, 2022 is shaping up to be a pretty great year. It was previously announced that Michael Keaton will be reprising his role as the Dark Knight for the upcoming The Flash movie and then, on Wednesday, it was revealed that Keaton will also appear in HBO Max’s upcoming Batgirl film as well, also seemingly reprising his role of Bruce Wayne/Batman from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman. But with it being nearly 30 years since Keaton’s suited up as Batman, one can’t help but wonder why Keaton is choosing to return to the iconic role now and it turns out, much of that comes down to him simply being curious.

Speaking with Variety, Keaton explained that he’d been curious for some time about what it would be like to suit up as Batman again and when the opportunity presented itself, he took it — though it took him a long time to come to it.

“‘What would that be like?’ or ‘What if I had to do that again,’” Keaton said he asked himself. “Just because I was curious didn’t mean I wanted to do it. So, it took a long time, frankly… I’m not just gonna say I’ll do it. It has to be good and there has to be a reason.”

The Flash director Andy Muschietti previously explained during DC FanDome China that Keaton didn’t actually need a lot of convincing, thanks to the script, something that Muschietti described as “great”.

“I think Keaton was honored to come to do this character again. But mainly we sent him a great script, and that is probably the thing that got him interested,” Muschietti said. “It’s more complex than this… we gave him a great script and I promised him great direction. And that was about it.”

Keaton has also spoken about what it was like putting the Batman suit back on, previously describing it as “shockingly normal” during a talk with Good Day Chicago‘s Jake Hamilton.

“It was shockingly normal. It was weird,” Keaton described wearing the suit and cape again. “Like I went ‘Oh, oh yeah, that’s right.’ But also, then you start to play the scenes and a lot of memories, a lot of interesting sense memories (start to come back).” Keaton wouldn’t confirm if he’s said the iconic line “I’m Batman” yet while filming (a wise wager would be to bet on him saying it at some point though) and also said he’s yet to talk to Tim Burton about what he’s doing. “No, but just because we haven’t because we’ve got other stuff to talk about.”

The Flash hits theaters on November 4, 2022.