Colin Farrell has proven that he is a true man of culture, as The Penguin star revealed that he loves Joel Schumacher’s maligned Batman movies, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. Farrell is currently dominating our screens as Oz Cobb in The Penguin, portraying a grittier, more realistic version of the one found in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. While Farrell’s co-star, Cristin Milioti (who plays Sofia Falcone in the series) has gone on record saying she loves Batman Returns, Farrell says his Batman tastes lean into the more eccentric.
Speaking to Variety with his The Penguin cast mates, Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, and Deirdre O’Connell, Farrell revealed that he absolutely adores Joel Schumacher’s unique and controversial take on Gotham City and Batman’s rogues’ gallery. While Tim Burton helped to re-define Batman on the big screen, Schumacher’s movies were partially responsible for killing the character’s reputation and profitability, until our cinematic lord and savior Christopher Nolan saved the day with Batman Begins. But Farrell doesn’t care about the reviews, or the public perception of Schumacher’s movies, saying he loves “the ridiculous opera of Joel Schumacher’s Batmans. I really do.” He continued:
“I really enjoy them. And I get why they were slammed at the time, and I also know that Joel did his best.”
But Farrell’s tastes aren’t exclusively reserved for Schumacher’s Batman movies, as The Penguin star appreciates every version of Gotham City on the big screen, from the dark and realistic, to the absolutely bonkers. He continued:
“There’s a lot of nostalgia for me around Tim Burton’s ones. And then what Chris Nolan and his team did were extraordinary as well. [Batman] survived multiple iterations. And they’re all so remarkably different.”
Why Are Joel Schumacker’s Batman Movies Hated?
How can anyone actually hate George Clooney ice skating around Gotham in a Bat-suit with rubber nipples, paying for things with his Bat-credit card? It’s easy to look back at Schumacher’s Batman movies fondly, with the hindsight knowledge that the character’s cinematic future was safe in the hands of Christopher Nolan and Matt Reeves. But, for audiences who watched Batman Forever and, more egregiously, Batman & Robin when they were released, Joel Schumacher was public enemy number one among the DC fan base.
Batman Forever, starring Val Kilmer as Bruce Wayne, introduced the world to Jim Carrey’s eccentric Riddler — decades before Paul Dano would take on the role and terrify audiences with his military mask and beautiful latte art. Despite mixed reviews, Batman Forever was a box office sensation, and was the second-highest domestic grossing movie in 1995, behind Toy Story. However, Schumacher’s house of cards (Schumacher actually directed two episodes of House of Cards) fell when George Clooney donned the suit in Batman & Robin.
Alongside Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze — which transformed one of Batman’s most tragic villains into a campy super-criminal — Clooney’s version of Batman, and almost everything about the movie is hated to this day. In fact, George Clooney still apologizes to fans for the film, and has said that he always will.
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