10 Actors Who Knew Their Action Movie Was Doomed From Day One

Sandwiched between Tim Burton’s first two entries in bringing DC’s Caped Crusader to the silver screen and Christopher Nolan’s famed Dark Knight Trilogy, director Joel Schumacher produced two overtly camp and colourful Batman movies, which after achieving box office success with Batman Forever (1995) then hit rock bottom with the universally considered awful Batman & Robin (1997).

Schumacher's first Batman, Val Kilmer, had decided that one comic book movie was enough, and so a new lead was sought for Batman & Robin, with the director eventually settling on George Clooney. At this time, Clooney was riding high in transitioning from TV to cinema after putting in a highly memorable performance in the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino vampire flick From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).

Clooney has often looked back on the role, which was widely ridiculed, admitting that he had reservations about taking on the iconic hero, and that in hindsight it “physically hurts” to watch his own “terrible performance” in a film which turned into a car crash of a movie with a highly questionable style over substance. Although his involvement did little to dampen his hugely successful career in movies, this seems as if it is one performance that George Clooney would certainly like to brush under the carpet.