10 Terrible Mistakes That Almost Ruined Batman For Everyone

5. Bill Murray Almost Played Batman

The many actors who have almost played Batman have been much-discussed, especially recently with the news that Jay & Silent Bob's Ben Affleck will star as the next big screen Bat, but none would have been as terrible a decision as the near casting of Bill Murray for the 1989 Tim Burton production.

While Michael Keaton's comic side probably helped the character, he was quirky and edgy enough to add depth to both the Caped Crusader and Bruce Wayne, and he had enough charisma and poise to pull off both sides of the character. Murray on the other hand would have ruined both.

He might have been an arresting Bruce Wayne, but much of his career has been spent playing consciously immature (though intelligent) characters - self-consciously developmentally different might be the best way to put it - and his own brand of arrogant neurosis wouldn't have fit.

That failure would likely have stopped Burton's Bat-films before they got going, and we would never have had Batman Returns, or the lesser sequels, and no studio would ever have seen potential enough to hand the reigns to Chris Nolan for his iteration of the property. Thus Batman would probably have been consigned to the same scrap-heap as The Spirit, The Shadow, Spawn, Daredevil and Howard The Duck.

And he wasn't the only terrible choice to play Batman, as revealed in this list of actors who would have been even worse choices than Ben Affleck...