George Clooney claims he was paid less than Arnold Schwarzenegger for Batman
George Clooney has revealed he advised Ben Affleck to pass on a certain movie role, but Affleck ignored him and lived to regret it.
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Ben Affleck was warned not to accept the role of Batman by a star who previously played the caped crusader.
George Clooney starred in 1997’s critically panned Batman & Robin and revealed on The Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcast that he advised Ben Affleck to turn down the role in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and in 2017’s Justice League.
“I actually did talk to him about it. I said, ‘Don’t do it,’” Clooney said. “It was only from my experience, which is, you know …”
The scars from Batman & Robin still remain for George Clooney.
The Oscar-winning actor, 58, said he caught a lot of flak for his performance in the titular role of Batman, even though co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who portrayed the villainous Mr. Freeze, took home the bigger pa ycheck.
“[Arnold] Schwarzenegger was paid, I think, $25 million for that, which was like 20 times more than I was paid for it, and, you know, we never even worked together! We worked together one day. But I took all the heat,” Clooney said, adding he learned plenty from the experience.
“Now, fair deal; I was playing Batman and I wasn’t good in it, and it wasn’t a good film, but what I learned from that failure was, I had to rethink how I was working. Because now I wasn’t just an actor getting a role, I was being held responsible for the film itself.”
Batman & Robin, which also starred Chris O’Donnell as Robin, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl, currently holds at 10 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed $107 million in the US, with a $125 million production budget, according to Box Office Mojo.
This story originally appeared in the NY Post and is republished here with permission
Originally published as George Clooney claims he was paid less than Arnold Schwarzenegger for Batman