4. Michael Keaton As Batman - Batman/Batman Returns
He started it, or at least, he's the one who made the phrase iconic. Michael Keaton is a man that could probably never be cast as Batman in today's social media society. Fans didn't even need the internet to voice their outrage over Keaton's casting. They wrote letters and editorials in newspapers. They talked to anyone who would listen. And they were all dead wrong. Michael Keaton was exactly the kind of Batman needed for the character's first serious cinematic adaptation. He may have spoken softly underneath that cowl, but his understated vocals added to the mystery of the costumed vigilante. He was the dark, weird figure described by Bill Finger in Batman's earliest comic book adventures. As Bruce Wayne, Michael Keaton played right into the less stable approach Tim Burton wanted for his Batman. Conventional wisdom holds that a man would have to be crazy to dress up like a bat and fight crime. While Keaton wasn't afraid to "get nuts," he was the kind of man who spent more time living inside his own head than anywhere else. He was the kind of man just far enough on the outside fringes of reality to take the road less traveled to achieve justice in Gotham and fight the evil that took away his parents.
