10 WORST Actor Replacements In Movies

Despite his tongue-in-cheek return at the end of The Flash (2023), George Clooney has been banned (by fans, producers, and himself) from the role of the Caped Crusader ever since the series-ending disaster that was Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin. 

Schumacher took the reins from Tim Burton in the mid-'90s, ditching some of the gothic influence and realising a brighter, neon-inflected Gotham that paralleled the growing rave scene of the time. It was fitting, then, that for a new-look Gotham, the film deserved a new-look Bat, and in Schumacher's first film, Batman Forever (1995), Val Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton in the lead role. Now, Kilmer wasn't perfect but he played a more convincing billionaire playboy than Keaton, and what he lost in the suit was made up for with some seriously OTT villains. 

Fast forward two years and the notoriously difficult-to-work-with Kilmer was out on his ass, and '90s heartthrob George Clooney was stepping into the spandex. On paper, Clooney should have been right for the role; handsome, witty, in-demand, and with the kind of chin that really rounds out a cowl. Unfortunately, the results were quite the opposite. His boyish nature took the punch out of both Bruce and Batman, who are meant to be dark and brooding, but which he played like a smarmy tech bro. His performance is hammy as hell, and as for his line delivery, well, Adam West could have done better.