Batman & Robin: George Clooney says film’s failure made him a better actor

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

As an actor, you are measured by your accomplishments and your failures. Even though it's incredible to have a huge box office success, sometimes it's the failures and how you deal with them that helps define you as a performer. George Clooney has had many successes under his belt but there is one failure that is likely viewed as his biggest and that's 1997's, Batman & Robin. The film virtually crippled the Batman franchise until the release of 2005's Batman Begins and it quickly became the butt of many jokes that still linger today. George Clooney took a lot of the hits since he was the lead of the film but he's revealing that the failure of Batman & Robin actually made him a better actor.

"I'd gotten killed for doing Batman & Robin and I understood for the first time – because quite honestly when I got Batman & Robin I was just an actor getting an acting job and I was excited to play Batman – what I realized after that was that I was going to be held responsible for the movie itself not just my performance or what I was doing. So I knew I needed to focus on better scripts, the script was the most important thing. You can't make a good film out of a bad script, it's impossible. You can make a bad film out of a good script."

Batman & Robin was directed by the late Joel Schumacher who brought the franchise back to life a bit with 1995's Batman Forever. That film was much lighter than 1992's Batman Returns and the end result was better box office on top of merchandising sales that went through the roof. Warner Bros. wanted to go even more kid-friendly with Batman & Robin and Schumacher even admitted that he felt he was making a film that was intended to sell toys. Although the film has a bit of a cult following now, at the time of its release the film was devoured by critics and it was the lowest-grossing Batman film to date with a final take of $107.3 million at the domestic box office on a $125 million budget. The film also stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman, Chris O'Donnell, Alicia Silverstone, and Michael Gough. 

Clooney acknowledged in a previous interview that he was strictly an actor in Batman & Robin and was not in a position at the time to do anything other than don the cape and cowl and do what producers told him to do:

"I couldn't have done that one differently. It's a big machine, that thing. You have to remember at that point, I was just an actor getting an acting job. I wasn't the guy who could greenlight a movie… [Arnold Schwarzenegger and I] never even saw each other. It's a big, monster machine, and I just sort of jumped in and did what they said… The truth of the matter is, I was bad in it. Akiva Goldsman – who's won the Oscar for writing since then – he wrote the screenplay. And it's a terrible screenplay, he'll tell you. I'm terrible in it, I'll tell you. Joel Schumacher, who just passed away, directed it, and he'd say, 'Yeah, it didn't work.' We all whiffed on that one."

The failure of Batman & Robin kept the character off of the big screen until Christopher Nolan successfully rebooted the brand with 2005's Batman Begins. Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy brought big box office and prestige back to the franchise and seemingly erased the stench of Batman & Robin. As for Clooney, the actor went on to have many box office and critical successes and he became an accomplished director in his own right and would eventually win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Syriana. He has definitely gotten over the failure of Batman & Robin and has gone on to become one of the better performers of his generation.

What are YOUR thoughts on Clooney's post-Batman & Robin career?