George Clooney Won't Show Batman & Robin to Amal: 'I Want My Wife to Have Some Respect for Me'

BATMAN AND ROBIN, Chris O'Donnell, George Clooney, 1997
BATMAN AND ROBIN, Chris O'Donnell, George Clooney, 1997
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George Clooney won't be showing Batman & Robin during movie night any time soon.

The actor, 60, admitted he won't let his wife Amal Clooney watch his 1997 film out of embarrassment. The movie, which starred George as Bruce Wayne and also featured performances by Chris O'Donnell and Alicia Silverstone, was slammed by critics and currently holds a 12% on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.

Batman & Robin was the first and last time George played the DC superhero, a fact that's not lost on the Oscar winner.

At a recent screening of his new film The Tender Bar, George joked to Variety that he was not invited to reprise his role as Batman, while Ben Affleck — the most recent actor to play the iconic role — was tapped for The Flash, a DC film in which he'll play Batman once again.

george clooney
george clooney

Getty

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"They didn't ask me," George said over the weekend. "When you destroy a franchise the way I did, usually they look the other way when The Flash comes by."

Amal, 43, told Variety, "He won't let me watch it," referring to George's turn as Batman in Batman & Robin.

The Ocean's Eleven star defended his choice, explaining, "There are certain films I just go, 'I want my wife to have some respect for me.' "

He added that he won't even allow his children to see the film. Amal and George share four-year-old twins Alexander and Ella.

"It's bad when your four-year-old kid goes, 'This sucks,' " George said. "That could be painful."

Amal and George Clooney
Amal and George Clooney

LISA O'CONNOR/AFP via Getty

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George isn't shy about his regret for his Batman & Robin performance. During a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he plainly stated, "I wasn't good in it, it wasn't a good film," but said he used the experience to inform his future film projects.

"What I learned from that failure was that I had to relearn how I was working. Now, I wasn't just an actor getting a role, I was being held responsible for the film itself," George explained. "So the next three films I did were Three Kings, Out of Sight and O Brother, Where Art Thou? That was a very specific choice for me to find better projects."

When it was time for Affleck to suit up for the role, he called George for advice. Affleck first played Batman in 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. George initially warned him not to take the role, he recalled to Howard Stern last year, but was pleased to see that Affleck did "a great job."

"Ben didn't listen to me, and he ended up doing a great job and I was wrong," George told Stern. "But hey, I can only impart my wisdom from my experience and I just said, 'Don't have nipples on the suit.' "

The Tender Bar will be in theaters nationwide on Dec. 22 and on Amazon Prime Video on Jan. 7.