George Clooney first played Batman in Batman & Robin, a movie which killed the franchise for a number of years, so it was a surprise when he reprised the role in The Flash.
However, you shouldn’t expect George Clooney to play Batman again anytime soon. “I don’t think there are enough drugs in the world for me to go back again,” the actor told Entertainment Tonight at the premiere of The Boys in the Boat. He joked that he only returned in the first place because he believed fans were eager to see him play the character again. “I thought there was such a clamor for me to come back as Batman, as you know. There was a clamor,” Clooney said. “I actually said, ‘Where are my rubber nipples?’ And they were like, ‘Can we do it without the rubber nipples?’ I was like, ‘Well, it’s not really my Batman, is it?’“
Even if The Flash wasn’t a massive box-office bomb, we likely would have never seen George Clooney as Batman again. James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe will be wiping away much of the previous DCEU, which includes a fresh start for Batman in The Brave and the Bold.
George Clooney has long joked about his time as the “worst Batman,” and he recently told a story on Jimmy Kimmel Live in which his own son roasted him. “My son is in love with Batman. Right? He’s in love with Batman,” Clooney explained. “That’s all he talks about is Batman. And I’m like, ‘You know I was Batman? And he’s like, ‘Yeah, not anymore.’ He has no idea how right he is.“
“Worlds collide in The Flash when Barry uses his superpowers to travel back in time in order to change the events of the past,” reads the official synopsis of The Flash. “But when his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned, threatening annihilation, and there are no Super Heroes to turn to. That is, unless Barry can coax a very different Batman out of retirement and rescue an imprisoned Kryptonian… albeit not the one he’s looking for. Ultimately, to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry’s only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?“