Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Michael Keaton playing Batman in the original Tim Burton movie, but at the time, Keaton was considered a risky choice. Burton naturally looked at other actors to star in Batman, and that included Terminator star Michael Biehn, who said that he came close to snagging the role.

“I went in and met Tim Burton over at Warner Bros, and back in those days, they were just meetings, they weren’t auditions. I would just go in and meet,” Biehn said in a recent episode of the Just Foolin’ About with Michael Biehn podcast. “But I was very good at telling people how good I was going to be at this role, how I was going to play it, I was going to do this, I was going to do that, sometimes some of the dialogue would slip in, I’ve done that many many times.“

Biehn continued, “I did that with Tim Burton, and Tim Burton, I guess, liked me quite a bit. Tim Burton had me in again, and it was an important enough meeting that Ed Limato (Biehn’s agent) came in with me. We sat and talked with Tim Burton for about an hour. Of course, he ended up casting Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. But Limato told me that [Burton] had two choices: it was either that choice or me and Robin Williams [as the Joker].“

Although Jack Nicholson was the studio’s preferred actor for the Joker, Robin Williams was actually offered the part, only for Warner Bros. to snatch it away in what Williams believed was an attempt to force Nicholson’s hand. Pairing Williams with Biehn would have given us something quite different, and it’s hard not to imagine what could have been.

As Biehn wasn’t a big comic-book fan, he didn’t seem too upset about missing out on the role. However, the actor concluded by praising Matt Reeve’s The Batman. “I f***ing love that movie,” he said. “I thought that was extremely, extremely well done. I liked that one a lot.“

Could you have seen Michael Biehn as Batman?

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