As ridiculous as it sounds to say 35 years later given that many still hold him up as the greatest live-action iteration of the character there’s ever been, a lot of people were pissed when it was first announced Michael Keaton would be playing the title role in Tim Burton’s Batman.
In fact, tens of thousands of angry letters were sent to Warner Bros. headquarters by folks left seething that the star of Mr. Mom and Beetlejuice would be taking top billing in one of the most hotly-anticipated blockbusters of all-time. Of course, there’s a reason why hindsight is always 20/20, and here we are in the summer of 2023 with anticipation heading through the roof ahead of Keaton’s impending return in The Flash.
There’s going to be callbacks aplenty, with the majority of trailers focusing on the actor’s repurposing of the iconic; “You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts.” It’s indisputably one of the Dark Knight’s best-ever one-liners, with Keaton revealing in an interview with Empire that he’s pretty sure he was the one who came up with it.
“I don’t think ‘Let’s get nuts’ was in the script, that was me. That scene was never really that good as written, to be honest with you. That was one of the days where we went round and round. I think Kim’s in it, me and Jack, nobody could ever find it. I thought, ‘Okay, pressure’s on, man. Pressure. Is. On.’ I thought he’d probably said, ‘Okay, I’m kind of cornered, I only have one way to go and I’d better let this character know that we’re gonna throw down.’ There was so much figuring it out as we went along.”
It all worked out pretty well for Keaton in the end, even if Batman Returns did lead to a sabbatical that spanned 30 years, one that’s already seen his comeback put on ice following the shelving of Batgirl and his excision from Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. At least we’ve still got The Flash, and the excitement to see him get nuts again is reaching fever pitch.