When it comes to naming the best actor to have played Batman on the big screen, most of the time it boils down to a straight shootout between Michael Keaton and Christian Bale. Ben Affleck admittedly has a huge number of supporters due to the popularity of the SnyderVerse, with Val Kilmer largely left out of the conversation but still miles ahead of George Clooney.
During the debate, Will Arnett’s Caped Crusader is often completely ignored, which probably has a lot to do with The LEGO Batman Movie being an animated feature. Chris McKay’s expansion of the minifig universe was a huge success, earning $312 million at the box office and winding up with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 90%, even if the sequel ultimately fell apart when Warner Bros. lost control of the LEGO rights.
Keaton made an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert this week and addressed several Batman-related questions, and one of his responses saw him give a shout out to Arnett’s Dark Knight.
“I’ll tell you a great version, and that is, if you haven’t seen it or heard it, Will Arnett’s LEGO Batman is really funny.”
Arnett was hilarious in The LEGO Batman Movie, growling his way through a self-deprecating performance that mined the deepest depths of DC Comics lore for inspiration, and it’s a shame that we likely won’t get to see his irreverent spin on the pop culture icon again.