George Clooney says he won't let his wife watch Batman & Robin. Clooney played Batman for director Joel Schumacher in 1997's Batman & Robin, which put the Batman franchise on ice for eight years after it flopped. Clooney followed Michael Keaton and then Val Kilmer in the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman, tackling the role as his career was taking off with roles in E.R., From Dusk Till Dawn and One Fine Day. The ensemble cast included Chris O'Donnell as Robin, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl.

Batman & Robin was the lowest-grossing Batman film of all time, making a paltry $238 million worldwide off of a $125 million budget, and receiving almost universally bad reviews across the board. The failure of the film led to a complete reboot by the time WB ventured into the Batcave again with Christopher Nolan's aptly-titled Batman Begins in 2005. Nolan's follow-up sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, both made over $1 billion worldwide, which put the Batman & Robin debacle in the rear view and gifted the IP to the next caretaker, Zack Snyder, who hired Ben Affleck for the role in both Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. Affleck is next appearing in the cowl for Andy Muschietti's The Flash, which also brings back the original Batman, Michael Keaton.

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Clooney just finished directing Affleck in his adaptation of The Tender Bar, and was asked by Variety if he may appear in The Flash alongside Keaton and Affleck. Clooney replied humorously, “They didn’t ask me. When you destroy a franchise the way I did, usually they look the other way when ‘The Flash’ comes by." Clooney's wife, Amal, said, “He won’t let me watch it,” to which Clooney responded that he had good reason for it. "There are certain films I just go, ‘I want my wife to have some respect for me.'" Amal then commented that her and Clooney's twins, Alexander and Ella, may eventually want to see the film. However, Clooney didn't seem keen on that idea either, joking, "It’s bad when your four-year-old kid goes, ‘This sucks.’ That could be painful.”

George Clooney Arnold Schwarzenegger Batman & Robin paychecks

While Clooney may not have succeeded as Batman, the actor/director found plenty of roles and projects to redeem himself throughout the years. Acting in films like Out of Sight for Steven Soderbergh, Three Kings for David O. Russell, O Brother Where Art Thou? for the Coen Brothers, the Ocean's Eleven franchise, and many others, more than made up for his short tenure as Batman. Clooney has also been a fairly prolific director, working on projects like Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night, and Good Luck, Hulu's Catch-22 adaptation and the aforementioned The Tender Bar with Ben Affleck.

While Batman & Robin may have the reputation as the worst of the Bat-franchise, the years have made it a bit of a cult classic. By all accounts, the late director Joel Schumacher actually made the best modern-day adaptation of the Batman TV show. Unfortunately, that's not the film anyone was looking or hoping for when it was released, but it has found a new life and appreciation for all the style, camp, and outright ridiculousness that's infused into it. It's a far cry from the Burton, Nolan and Snyder Batman incarnations (and certainly will be vastly different than Matt Reeves' The Batman next year), and while Clooney may share some open humility about the role, it still has it's charms, even if they're for how awful the film is.

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Source: Variety