Ray Liotta Could Have Been Batman?
Ray Liotta passed on the chance to play Batman in Tim Burton’s 1989 smash hit
Ray Liotta has had long career of movie and TV roles stretching back over 35 years. In a career stretching out that long, there’s bound to be a few missed opportunities. But there is not one Ray Liotta regrets more than not meeting with director Tim Burton for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman for the 1989 Batman movie.
Ray Liotta got a call from his casting agent that Burton was casting for the first real big screen film starring the caped crusader, and though he really liked the idea of meeting with Tim Burton, he just thought the idea of a Batman movie, or comic book movie in general was just a silly idea.
"I think Tim Burton is a great, great director, and I always regretted not going and meeting him, just to talk, It just seemed silly."
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And of course ultimately that role went to Michael Keaton, and the rest is history. But it’s hard to blame Ray Liotta for passing on a comic book movie in the late 80s. It was a very dark time for comic book films. I mean, up to that point, the last really successful superhero movie was Superman II, which was released at the start of the decade in 1980. After that you had garbage like the last two Christopher Reeve Superman films, Howard The Duck, Supergirl, The Toxic Avenger (which has a cult following, but was made on virtually nothing and isn’t a good movie), etc.
Well, it’s not like passing on Batman really hurt Ray Liotta’s career, It just could’ve been so much bigger. And he probably jump at the chance to be in a Marvel or DC movie now. You can currently see Ray Liotta co-starring with Jennifer Lopez in the TV cop drama Shades Of Blue on NBC.