Why Did Michael Keaton's Batman Retire? The Real Reason Is Devastating
The sight of seeing Michael Keaton's back in his Batman costume prior to the release of "The Flash" stirred up a fan frenzy. True, the veteran actor eventually wears an updated costume that recalls his look in Tim Burton's 1989 and 1992 "Batman" films in "The Flash." However, when Barry Allen-The Flash (Ezra Miller) finds Keaton's multiversal version of Bruce Wayne, the one-time Caped Crusader appears as a broken man who has given up on his life as the superhero who saved Gotham.
"I really wanted to defy people's expectations of where Bruce Wayne would be 30 years later, and I also wanted to deepen the backstory of Bruce Wayne," Andy Muschietti said in a Warner Bros. production video. "Bruce Wayne, as the story tells, has been retired for 25 years. What happened him? I always said, something should have happened to Bruce Wayne to want to stop being Batman, and my idea was that he did something that goes against his code. He killed a criminal in front of his child — unknowingly, but he still did it."
As such, Muschietti added, Batman effectively faced his childhood trauma all over again: "[It's] an exact, mirroring situation of him, when his parents were killed in front of him in front of the Monarch Theater — and that created the monster that Batman is. So, he just couldn't cope with it."
The Flash gave the Muschiettis the chance to explore Batman's psyche
"The Flash" sees Barry Allen speeding back through time in a bid to avert a traumatic event in his childhood where his mother, Nora (Maribel Verdú), is murdered and his father, Henry (Ron Livingston), is wrongfully accused and convicted of the crime. However, changing the past also changes the future to create a world without metahumans, leading Barry to fix the broken timeline where he and his younger self team with a multiversal version of Bruce Wayne-Batman (Michael Keaton) and Supergirl (Sasha Calle).
Clearly, the most exciting aspect of working on "The Flash" for Andy Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti was simply getting Keaton to play Batman again after three decades. If not, the Muschiettis would not have made their film without Keaton.
"To be honest, the fact that we'd be able to bring Michael Keaton back as Tim Burton's Batman was one of the things that cemented our decision to make 'The Flash'... Michael Keaton's Batman has heart. He is a very human Batman and is very reluctant to come back," Barbara Muschietti said in the production video.
With that, the Muschiettis took the opportunity to dig into Batman's psyche. "The thing with Batman, in general, is that [he's] this man immersed in misery, his childhood trauma, and he doesn't seem to be able to overcome it," Andy Muschietti added. "He's the only Batman, apart from the Adam West version, that seems to have a sarcastic sense of humor about it, and I think it's very tied to some sort of coping mechanism. He has a very dark side to him, but there's a lightness to him [as well], and that's why I found remarkable about his performance."