George Clooney warned Ben Affleck against playing Batman

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Over twenty years ago, the world was gifted with the dumpster fire known as BATMAN & ROBIN. The negative reception to the Joel Schumacher film caused Warner Bros. to cancel the planned sequel and and sent the franchise into limbo, where it remained until BATMAN BEGINS resurrected it in 2005. George Clooney played Bruce Wayne/Batman in BATMAN & ROBIN, his first and only time playing the role. Needless to say, the backlash towards the film wasn't exactly kind to Clooney.

The actor spoke on The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast and said that BATMAN & ROBIN taught him an important lesson about the movie industry at that stage in his career.

[Arnold] Schwarzenegger was paid, I think, $25 million for that, which was like 20 times more than I was paid for it, and, you know, we never even worked together! We worked together one day. But I took all the heat. Now, fair deal; I was playing Batman and I wasn’t good in it, and it wasn’t a good film, but what I learned from that failure was, I had to rethink how I was working. Because now I wasn’t just an actor getting a role, I was being held responsible for the film itself. So I wasn't being reviewed for what I did, as much as what the film was.

Years later, George Clooney would use his experience on BATMAN & ROBIN to give some advice to Ben Affleck, who was being offered the role on BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. "I actually did talk to him about it. I said, ‘Don’t do it.' It was only from my experience, which is, you know…" Clooney said, before adding, "He did great, though." Affleck went on to appear as Batman in BATMAN V SUPERMAN, SUICIDE SQUAD, and JUSTICE LEAGUE before departing the role.