What the Hell Happened to Michael Keaton?

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http://lebeauleblog.com/2011/03/16/what-the-hell-happened-to-michael-keaton/

Posted by lebeau

Michael Keaton started out as a manic comic and grew into an unlikely
leading man and an even more unlikely super hero. As the first big-
screen Batman, Keaton was able to make deals that secured him A-list
work. But when he walked away from the Bat-franchise, Keaton’s
opportunities dried up. Eventually, he all but disappeared from the
spotlight.

What the hell happened?

Keaton’s film career started with broad comedy roles in the 80′s. His
first screen role was the underrated prostitution-in-a-morgue comedy
Night Shift. The film starred Henry Winkler as an accountant-turned-
pimp (that was a surprisingly common premise in 80′s comedy. See
also: Dr. Detroit) and Shelley Long as a hooker with a heart of gold
(a novel concept if ever there was one).

Keaton absolutely stole the show. His motormouth idea man never
stopped rattling off one crazy idea after another to the point where
even the Fonz lost his cool and told him to shut up.

Keaton followed up Night Shift with 1983′s star-making turn in Mr.
Mom. Let this sink in for a minute. Some stars toil away in
Hollywood for years looking for a big break. Mr. Mom was Keaton’s
second movie!

After the one-two punch of Night Shift and Mr. Mom, it seemed like
Keaton had no where to go but down. In 1984, he stumbled with Johnny
Dangerously. Johnny Dangerously was a mob satire in the vein of
Airplane! except not funny.

In 1986, Keaton appeared in two movies. First, he reteamed with Night
Shift director Ron Howard for Gung Ho. Gung Ho was about the culture
clash between American and Japanese car factory workers. The material
was rife with comic possibilities. But the only one going for laughs
was Keaton. And even he couldn’t carry the weight of the picture
solely on his back.

Keaton made a slightly dramatic turn playing a hockey star in Touch
and Go. In the film, Keaton befriends a juvenile delinquent who tried
to mug him. Eventually, he winds up falling in love with the kid’s
mom. Touch and Go was to Keaton’s career what Continental Divide was
to John Belushi’s. The few people who saw it were impressed by
Keaton’s dramatic chops. But most audiences rejected a more dramatic
Keaton. They wanted to see him hip deep in diapers.

In 1987, Keaton hit rock bottom with the comedy/thriller The Squeeze.
I remember a Keaton appearance on David Letterman from this time.
Letterman asked Keaton if he wanted to talk about his new movie.
Keaton refused to show a clip and more or less admitted the movie was
shit.

Update: Polly tracked down this interview in the comments section.
Thanks, Polly.

If you just want to hear Keaton talk about The Squeeze, jump to the 8
minute mark. That’s how long it takes him to even acknowledge the
movie he is there to promote.

Interesting fact: Michael Keaton’s real name is Michael Douglas. He
changed it for obvious reasons. Michael Douglas’ father, Kirk
Douglas, was born Issur Danielovitch. If he hadn’t changed his name
to Douglas when he came to Hollywood, the name Michael Douglas would
have been available for Keaton to use. If that had happened, Michael
Douglas would have been Michael Danielovitch and Michael Keaton would
have been Michael Douglas.

The internet insists that Keaton chose his stage name after reading an
article about Diane Keaton on a plane. I remember reading an article
in Premiere magazine in 1989 in which Keaton attributed the choice to
Buster Keaton instead. But tragically, I don’t have my old Premiere
magazines any more. Anyone out there who can confirm the Buster
Keaton story?

Keaton’s film career recovered in 1988 when he paired with Tim Burton
for the first time in Beetlejuice. Although Keaton had the title
role, he’s really only on screen for about 20 minutes. But once
again, Keaton stole the show. His 20 minutes was the most memorable
part of the film and left the audience begging for more.

Keaton followed up Beetlejuice with a dramatic turn in Clean and
Sober. As the title suggests, Keaton plays an addict who gets clean.
It sounds very “movie of the week” today, but at the time this was
pretty hard hitting stuff. Especially for a comedic actor. The movie
wasn’t a big hit, but critics took notice.

Keaton started 1989 with an increasingly rare comedic role in The
Dream Team. The Dream Team was kind of like One Flew Over the
Cuckoo’s Nest played for laughs. And with fewer lobotomies.

Keaton, positively rocking the mullet, plays an inmate from a mental
institution who leads fellow in-mates Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle
and Stephen Furst on a quest to find their doctor.

I’m Batman!

Next, Keaton reteamed with Tim Burton for the film that would change
his career. Batman was by far the biggest thing going in 1989. That
summer, the Bat-symbol was on everything.

There are two important things that happened with Batman. One, Jack
Nicholson’s Joker stole the show while Keaton was trapped in a rubber
suit. The guy who had walked away with Night Shift and Beetlejuice
was now being upstaged in his biggest movie to date.

And two, Michael Keaton made a lot of money. This will come in to
play later on in our story.

Keaton used his Batman clout to get different types of roles. In
1990, he played a tenant from hell in Pacific Heights. The film was a
pretty formulaic thriller, but it allowed Keaton to stretch as a
villain. And also, to punch Matthew Modine in the face, repeatedly.
Which must have been part of the appeal of the role.

In 1991, Keaton continued to try dramatic roles in One Good Cop.
Keaton played a cop (a good one) whose partner is killed in the line
of duty. When Keaton tries to adopt his late partner’s daughter, he
is denied because his apartment is too small and the child has special
needs as a diabetic. The the opportunity arises for Keaton’s
character to make off with some drug money, buy a house and adopt the
girl.

Much like Touch and Go, audiences weren’t especially interested in a
dramatic Keaton. But the critics gave Keaton good notices.

Inevitably, Keaton returned to the role of Batman for the 1992 sequel
titled (what else?) Batman Returns. With Jack Nicholson out of the
picture, it seemed like an ideal time for Keaton’s Batman to shine.
Instead, Michelle Pfieffer’s Catwoman did the show stealing while
Danny DeVito chewed scenery in a way that Tim Burton must have found
funny. (But most of us just found gross.)

While I like Batman Returns, the movie is a dark, moody mess. Warner
Brothers wanted to sell happy meal toys and decided they could do so
better without Tim Burton making their franchise into a surreal
nightmare. So, Burton was replaced by Joel Schumacher for the
sequel. And Keaton, showing the best judgement of his career, bailed
out on the Batman films.

In 1993, Keaton had a comedic cameo in Kenneth Branagh’s 100th
adaptation of Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. The ensemble
included Kenneth Branagh (who did just about everything but the
catering), Emma Thompson (who would eventually decide that she had
enough of Branagh’s ego and divorced him) and Keanu Reeves who was
still trying to prove to the world that he was not Ted “Theodore”
Logan. As with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Reeves merely reinforced that
image.

Keaton’s next starring role was opposite Nicole Kidman in My Life. My
Life was directed by the writer of Ghost, Bruce Joel Rubin. Rubin was
in the process of burning up all the clout he gained by writing Ghost.

My Life is the worst kind of manipulate tear jerker. Keaton plays a
dying man who records messages for his unborn son. Yeah, it’s that
kind of movie. Keaton is excellent in it because he’s Michael
Keaton. But the movie can’t escape it’s shitty premise or the fact
it’s written and directed by Rubin.

In 1994, Keaton headed up an all-star ensemble in The Paper. The film
once again paired Keaton with director Ron Howard. It’s an
interesting if uneven look at tabloid journalism. There are elements
of the stage play The Front Page (which was adapted to film as the
classic His Girl Friday and the horrific Switching Channels.) But
certain story lines feel too contrived and the dramatic elements don’t
work as well as the comedic ones.

Keaton’s next film was the romantic comedy, Speechless. Keaton and
Geena Davis played rival speech writers from opposite political
parties who (you guessed it) fall in love. Unfortunately, the film
was neither romantic nor comical. The best thing about Speechless is
that it also included a post-Superman Christopher Reeve making it the
unofficial Batman/Superman movie we may never see.

In 1996, Keaton tried to return to the type of comedy that made him a
star with the high concept clone comedy Multiplicity. Now, don’t get
me wrong, Multiplicity is stupid. But Keaton is back in rare form.
I’m not saying Multiplicity is a lost gem, but it’s definitely under-
rated.

When Multiplicity failed to deliver at the box office, one of two
things happened. Either Keaton gave up trying to be a star or
Hollywood gave up on Keaton. I suspect a little bit of both.

I think Keaton must have gotten a bank statement and realized he was
sitting on piles of Batman money and asked himself why he was wiping
pizza on his face in mainstream Hollywood comedies when he could be
doing character roles in movies like Jackie Brown and Out of Sight.

I also think Hollywood asked itself how it allowed a slight and
slightly balding guy like Keaton to turn into a leading man when he
should be doing character roles in movies like Jackie Brown and Out of
Sight.

Speaking of which, Keaton’s next role was in Quentin Tarantino’s
follow-up to Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown. I’m just going to come out
and say it, Jackie Brown is under-rated. I use the phrase “criminally
under-rated” a lot. But Jackie Brown is under-rated and criminally
so.

Critics and audiences were somewhat disappointed when Jackie Brown
didn’t serve up the same pyrotechnics as Pulp Fiction. But go back
and watch it again now. It’s a damn fine crime drama.

In 1990, Keaton once again played a villain in Desperate Measures. I
had been looking forward to seeing this movie as I was a fan of both
Keaton and co-star Andy Garcia. But the horrid reviews scared me
off. I completely forgot the movie even existed and have never seen
it to this day. This appears to be the case with a lot of people as
the movie bombed at the box office.

Playing Ray Nicolette in both 1997′s Jackie Brown and 1998′s Out of
Sight is one of the coolest things any actor has ever done – period.

Keaton reprised his role as Ray Nicolette for Stephen Soderbergh’s Out
of Sight. What’s awesome about this is that the movie has absolutely
nothing to do with Jackie Brown other than the fact that both movies
are adaptations of Elmore Leonard novels. (And both movies are
terrific.) It really created a feeling of a larger universe for both
movies. I would have loved to see Keaton as Nicolette in another
movie.

After Out of Sight, everything went straight to hell. Keaton made one
last bid to reclaim starring roles with the family comedy Jack Frost
in which he was transformed into a fucking snowman!

Jack Frost was killed by the critics and ignored by audiences. It’s
another one of those movies where a dad learns important lessons about
parenthood through some kind of magic spell. Think Liar, Liar except
with the dad becoming a snow man!

To atone for making a snowman movie, Keaton more or less retired to
his piles of Batman money. Periodically, he would pop in something
like 2002′s Live From Baghdad for which he was nominated for a Golden
Globe.

In 2005, Keaton staged something of a miniature comeback. First,
Keaton starred in the low-budget horror film, White Noise. The movie
got bad reviews but was a hit with audiences. I agreed with the
critics on this one. But it was good to see Keaton working again.

Later that year, Keaton appeared in Herbie: Fully Loaded. Wait a
minute?! Herbie: Fully Loaded? What the hell happened?!? Seriously,
Michael. You go into semi-retirement but you come out of it to appear
in a Lindsay Lohan Disney remake? And the worst one of the bunch at
that!

Thank god Pixar found Michael Keaton’s number. After voicing Chick
Hicks in Cars, Keaton went on to steal Toy Story 3 as Ken and appeared
in the very funny The Other Guys. Keaton continues doing voice work
for Pixar as well as TV appearances on shows like 30 Rock.

Recently, Keaton was cast as the bad guy in the Robocop remake.
Personally, I have my doubts about a remake of Robocop. But Keaton
will be a draw for me.

So, what the hell happened?

1. Tim Burton paired up with Johnny Depp and stopped returning Michael
Keaton’s calls.

2. Michael Keaton used his star clout from Batman to punch Matthew
Modine in the face.

3. Without Batman, Beetlejuice or Mr. Mom, Hollywood decided Keaton
was better suited to character roles.

4. Realizing he was rich, Keaton got sick of whoring himself out in
snowman movies.

5. Some combination of #s 1-4.

Keaton has actually done a few interviews recently and I get the
impression he’s more than happy to be out of the spotlight. In one
interview I read, he said he got bored looking at himself on the big
screen all the time and he thought audiences must feel the same way.
Well, Michael, we don’t!

[Michael OConnor]

When he did Batman it looked like he was going to be THE film star of
his generation, but it was all downhill from there. I think Batman in
a way ruined his career, not because he was typecast, but I think he
drifted away from comedic or lighter film roles and tried to be just a
dramatic actor. And Tom Hanks came along and took most of the roles
that would have prevented Keaton from remaining an A list star, and
this is not a slam against Tom Hanks. I think most for most of Tom
Hanks film roles in the 90's and 00's (with the possible exception of
Forrest Gump) that Michael Keaton probably would have been every bit
as good in all of those roles, and I am talking about A League of
Their Own, Philadelphia, Apollo 13, Castaway, Catch Me if you Can,
Sleepless in Seattle, etc.

[Michael OConnor]

> I think you're right about Hanks, but he's probably a little more, if
> you will, Jimmy Stewart-ish than Keaton (has Hanks played a villain in
> anything besides Road to Perdition?)

I haven't seen it since it came out over 20 years ago, but I remember
in the movie Punchline he played a not-so-likable up and coming comic,
and he was competing with the Sally Field character for an appearance
on the Tonight Show IIRC, and she was the character you were rooting
for. But he wasn't a villain; he was more of an asshole.

[Howard Brazee]

On Sun, 09 Dec 2012 16:11:12 -0600, Dennis M
<denn...@dennism3.invalid> wrote:

>I think you're right about Hanks, but he's probably a little more, if
>you will, Jimmy Stewart-ish than Keaton (has Hanks played a villain in
>anything besides Road to Perdition?)

I supposed he played 1 1/2 villains in _Cloud Atlas_ (and 2 good
guys).

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison