Tim Burton Shares Reaction to Batman's Suit Adding Nipples After He Left Franchise: 'Go F— Yourselves'

Daniele Venturelli/WireImage; Everett

Tim Burton has choice words about Batman's costume gaining nipples after his departure from directing the franchise.

Burton directed the two Michael Keaton Batman movies: 1989's Batman and 1992's Batman Returns. In a new interview with Empire magazine, the filmmaker, 63, shares his reaction to the infamous addition of nipples to Val Kilmer's Batman suit in the 1995 follow-up film Batman Forever, which was directed by Joel Schumacher.

Burton said he fielded complaints about his tone being "too dark" for the Caped Crusader movies. "[Back then] they went the other way. That's the funny thing about it. But then I was like, 'Wait a minute. Okay. Hold on a second here. You complain about me, I'm too weird, I'm too dark, and then you put nipples on the costume? Go f--- yourself.' "

"Seriously," he added. "So yeah, I think that's why I didn't end up [doing a third film]…."

The director, whose next project is the Netflix series spinoff of The Addams Family titled Wednesday, explained of his style, "I'm not just overly dark. That represents me in the sense that … that's how I see things. It's not meant as pure darkness. There's a mixture."

George Clooney's Batman costume also had visible nipples in 1997's Batman & Robin. Jose Fernandez, the costume designer on the films who was responsible for the nipples idea, recently recalled the decision in an interview with MEL Magazine.

RELATED: Alicia Silverstone Was Called 'Fatgirl' While Filming Batman & Robin: 'It Was Hurtful'

Barry King/WireImage

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

"With Val Kilmer's suit in Batman Forever, the nipples were one of those things that I added. It wasn't fetish to me, it was more informed by Roman armor, like Centurions," said Fernandez. "And in the comic books the characters always looked like they were naked with spray paint on them — it was all about anatomy, and I like to push anatomy. I don't know exactly where my head was at back in the day, but that's what I remember. And so I added the nipples. I had no idea there was going to end up being all this buzz about it."

RELATED VIDEO: Robert Pattinson on the Surprising Challenges of His Batsuit: 'You'd Get Trapped in Rooms'

Fernandez said the nipples were "subtle" in the Kilmer movie but director Schumacher, who died in 2020, "loved the nipples" and wanted to "showcase them" in the Clooney sequel.

About the decision not to have Alicia Silverstone's Batgirl costume also have nipples like Clooney and Chris O'Donnell's Robin, the costumer said, "They wanted nipples on her too. They said, 'If the guys have nipples, the girls should have nipples too.' After I sculpted it though, everybody realized maybe not. It was a bit obscene, so we took the nipples off."