Michael Keaton originally pitched an origin story for the third Batman installment

Before Michael Keaton decided to leave the BATMAN franchise, he took one last swing at the subject. In an interview with WTF Podcast, Keaton talks about the Nolan franchise, and how he originally pitched the idea of an origin story for BATMAN 3 with Tim Burton serving as the helmer.

“The guy who’s doing them now, Chris Nolan, he’s so talented, it’s crazy. [Christian Bale] is so talented. It’s so good.” he enthused. “But I say that like I’ve seen them, and I actually haven’t. I didn’t even see much of the second one that I did.”

Keaton thought that by doing an origin story like Nolan, they could sort of straighten out some issues with the first two Burton films, “You look at where he went, which is exactly what I wanted to do when I was having meetings about the third one,” he continued. “I said you want to see how this guy started. We’ve got a chance here to fix whatever we kind of maybe went off. This could be brilliant.”

Sadly, Burton left, and when Joel Schumacher came aboard he wanted to go his own way, “[He] didn’t want to do it, so I didn’t want to do it.”

But Keaton already knew that the films were taking a different turn, “I could see that was going south.”

I would have liked to see another BATMAN flick with Keaton. I have no problems with his take on the character, and am guilty of liking BATMAN FOREVER despite its flaws. However, BATMAN & ROBIN can get the f*ck right out of Gotham.

To listen to the interview, head here .