Val Kilmer played Bruce Wayne/Batman in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, but he didn’t return for Batman & Robin – here's why. Batman is one of the most popular and beloved superheroes in comic book history, and as such, he has branched out to other media quite successfully, but his history on the big screen has had a lot of ups and downs. After two serial films in the 1940s and an adaptation of the 1960s TV show starring Adam West and Burt Ward, the Caped Crusader took over the big screen with Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989, followed by Batman Returns in 1992.
Burton’s movies saw Michael Keaton taking over the role of Bruce Wayne, but plans for a third Batman movie fell through, and the studio decided to go in a different direction with a new story, director, and cast. Joel Schumacher was brought in and Val Kilmer became the new Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever, which saw the title hero trying to stop Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and The Riddler (Jim Carrey), who were planning on extracting confidential information from all the minds in Gotham City and use it to uncover Batman’s identity and take control of the city. Batman Forever was a box office success but got mixed reviews from critics, who weren’t on board with the tone of the movie, the CGI, costumes, and Kilmer’s performance.
Batman went through another change for his next movie, Batman & Robin, also directed by Joel Schumacher but now starring George Clooney as the Caped Crusader. Since then, there have been different versions of what happened behind the scenes between Batman Forever and Batman & Robin for Kilmer to be replaced by Clooney, but the main reason seems to be a combination of a bad relationship between Schumacher and Kilmer, and the latter losing interest in playing Batman. Schumacher at some point revealed Kilmer was difficult to work with and described him as “childish and impossible” and even “psychotic”, going as far as to share that the Batman actor often fought with members of the crew. When Batman & Robin was in development, Schumacher refused to work with Kilmer again, and so the recasting process began, with Schumacher saying Kilmer “sort of quit” and they “sort of fired him”.
Kilmer, on the other hand, has given his own, different versions of what happened. First were scheduling conflicts, as he was already on board to film The Saint, an espionage thriller movie about a high tech thief and master of disguise, which he described in the documentary Val as being “like 10 roles in one”. Schumacher told THR in 2017 that Kilmer wanted to do Island of Doctor Moreau because Marlon Brando was in it, so he “dropped them at the eleventh hour”, but in 2020, Kilmer gave another explanation on why he didn’t return for Batman & Robin and why he lost interest in playing Batman. Speaking to The New York Times, Kilmer recalled one time during the filming of Batman Forever when Warren Buffet and his grandchildren visited the set, but the kids were more interested in the props and sets than in Kilmer in full Batman costume, which made him realize that it doesn’t matter who plays the character, which is why it’s “so easy to have five or six Batmans”.
Kilmer deciding to leave Gotham City behind after just one Batman movie was a combination of him not interested in it anymore, other projects catching his attention, and Schumacher not wanting him back, so in a way, it was a “mutual agreement” to not have him reprise the role. Unfortunately for Batman, recasting Val Kilmer didn’t turn out that great, as George Clooney’s performance is widely considered as the worst in Batman’s film history, and Batman & Robin one of the worst movies ever. In the end, Val Kilmer moved on with his career and Batman got another chance in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, so parting ways wasn’t a tragedy for either.
source https://screenrant.com/val-kilmer-recast-fired-after-batman-forever-reason/
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