Michael Biehn Spills: He Nearly Played Batman in 1989 Movie Along With Robin Williams’ Joker: “everybody who’s ever played Batman has always bitched and moaned and groaned”

The 1989 Batman movie, directed by Tim Burton, tells the story of Bruce Wayne becoming Batman to fight crime in Gotham City. Michael Keaton plays Batman, and Jack Nicholson stars as the Joker in this dark and stylish take on the superhero, which became a huge hit and shaped future comic book movies.

Before Keaton was praised for his portrayal, his casting caused a lot of controversy. Many actors were considered for the role, and Keaton, known mainly for comedy at the time, faced doubts about handling a serious part.

Michael Biehn, famous for Aliens and Terminator, recently shared that he was also seriously considered for the role of Batman.

On a recent episode of the Just Foolin’ Around podcast, actor Michael Biehn revealed he had two meetings with Tim Burton about playing Batman in the first film. Burton was deciding between two pairs: Biehn as Batman alongside Robin Williams as the Joker or the eventual choice, Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.

I went in and met Tim Burton, over at Warner Brothers, and back in those days they were just meetings. They weren’t auditions. I would just go in and meet. But I was very good at […] telling people how good I was going to be in this role and how I was going to play it.

And I was going to do this and I was going to do that, and sometimes some of the dialogue would slip in ya know. I’ve done that many many times. So I did that with Tim Burton. Tim Burton I guess liked me quite a bit. […] This was for Batman, this was for the original Batman.

So Tim Burton, had me in again and it was an important enough meeting that Limato [Biehn’s agent] came with me. Ed Limato came over there with me at Warner Brothers. We sat and we talked to Tim Burton for about an hour, and of course, he ended up casting Michael Keaton in that role and Jack Nicholson.

But Limato told me that he had two choices and it was either that choice or me and Robin Williams. Robin Williams [would] play the Joker. And that he [Burton] was making up his mind about that.

The host praised the idea of pairing Biehn with Williams, calling it an unbeatable duo. However, Biehn admitted he wasn’t interested in the role at all.

I didn’t know who Tim Burton was. I didn’t fucking […] Batman, I didn’t care. You know, I just went on to the next thing. It seems like everybody who’s ever played Batman has always bitched and moaned and groaned about how fucking difficult it was to play Batman and the suit and the whole thing.

Although THE Batman you know the movie THE Batman, did you see it? I fucking love that movie. I thought that was extremely extremely well done, I like that one a lot.

You can check out the actor’s statement below:

The 1989 Batman movie got mostly good reviews, but some thought it was too dark. People loved the movie’s style, set design, and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, though some felt the story didn’t focus enough on Batman.

Fans were divided over changes like the Joker killing Batman’s parents, and while Prince’s music got mixed reactions, Michael Keaton’s Batman impressed audiences.

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