Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight has already received a scathing criticism from one Batman alumni, as Jack Nicholson objected to not being re-cast in the role of the Joker. But what about Michael Keaton, who played the Dark Knight in Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns? MTV News got the opportunity to ask Keaton how he felt about the upcoming film:

I’ve only seen a little piece [of the sequels] here and there since I finished mine, not for any reason except that I didn’t have any real interest. The reason they weren’t interesting was the reason I didn’t want to do them anymore. I read the script [for Batman Forever]. I wasn’t into it. But how I wanted to do the third one is what they did in [Batman Begins]. I read an article about how they were going about it and I said, “That’s exactly what I thought should be done.” [Christopher Nolan] is so good and [Christian Bale] is so good. I really would like to see [Batman Begins]. I’m sure it’s good and I’m sure [The Dark Knight] is going to be better.

When told about his Batman co-star’s reaction to Nolan’s film, Keaton laughed. “No! Is he serious? I’ve got to call him up on that, give him a hard time.”

Keaton was also asked if he had ever been offered the role of a villain in any superhero film. “No, but it would be fun,” Keaton said. “I don’t think I’d take Jack’s stance on it. I think it’d be fun because those are the roles where you get to chew it up. I’ll always stand by the first [Batman]. Even for its imperfections, people will never know how hard that movie was to do. A lot of that still holds up.”

The Dark Knight opens on July 18, 2008, and stars Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart and Maggie Gylenhall.

Source: Superhero Flix