George Clooney shocked the DC Universe this summer when he returned to the role of Bruce Wayne, after 25 years, for a cameo appearance in The Flash — and is now confirming that was a one-and-done reprisal.
Clooney infamously played Bruce Wayne/Batman in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin, the 1997 movie that was considered one of the worst superhero films of all time. The actor has repeatedly spoken out against the film, telling Howard Stern in 2020, “Akiva Goldsman — who’s won the Oscar for writing since then — he wrote the screenplay. And it’s a terrible screenplay, he’ll tell you. I’m terrible in it, I’ll tell you.”
But in June, Clooney made a surprise return to the role in the final moments of The Flash, as Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen is on the phone with Bruce Wayne after finally returning to his own Earth and timeline. Wayne pulls up to the courthouse in his car and as he gets out, he is revealed to be played by Clooney, not the Ben Affleck version of Batman that Barry expected, who appears elsewhere in the film.
Asked by The Hollywood Reporter at the Los Angeles premiere of his new film The Boys in the Boat on Monday if that appearance was a one-time thing or opened the door to more Batman work, Clooney laughed and confirmed, “Oh yeah. Somehow there were not a lot of requests for me to reprise my role as Batman, I don’t know why.”
THR reported at the time that Warner Bros. and the team behind The Flash kept Clooney’s appearance in the film secret for close to six months, as DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran reached out to Clooney’s agent at CAA, Bryan Lourd, and showed him a cut of the mostly finished film; Lourd then showed it to the star, who liked it and agreed to take part in a cameo. Gunn has also previously tweeted that Clooney is “absolutely not” the DCU’s new Batman as he and Safran revamp the comic book universe.
Following the superhero role, Clooney has shifted to director mode, helming The Boys in the Boat, which tells the inspirational true story of the 1936 University of Washington rowing team that competed for gold at the Summer Olympics in Berlin. The film hits theaters on Dec. 25.