The Career-Saving Lesson George Clooney Learned From ‘Batman & Robin’
George Clooney has had one heck of a movie career. He’s been able to move from comedy to drama with ease, never becoming pigeonholed into one genre in particular. In a recent interview with Deadline, Clooney revisited his career landmarks, including one serious misstep — Batman & Robin. The widely panned Warner Bros. superhero film was a wake-up call for Clooney, and he stated it taught him a very important lesson.
“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,” Clooney explained.
It's no secret that both Marvel and DC movies are often scrutinized by their fanbases. And If the movie is as bad as Batman & Robin, they're not going to take it lightly. Besides becoming the lowest-grossing live-action Batman movie to date, Batman & Robin was also nominated for a handful of Razzie Awards. The film’s planned sequel, Batman Unchained, was promptly cancelled after its terrible reception.
So what's Clooney's takeaway from all this? “I knew I needed to focus on better scripts, the script was the most important thing,” he explained. “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.” Luckily, Batman & Robin didn't stop Clooney from continuing to grow his acting career. Since then, he has collaborated with the likes of the Coen Brothers and Steven Soderbergh.
Clooney's latest film, The Midnight Sky, is available on Netflix now.
Gallery — Every DC Comics Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best: