Michael Keaton has played characters in both of the biggest franchises in the superhero world. Over the course of his career, he played the crime-fighting Bruce Wayne/Batman in the Burtonverse films and portrayed the Marvel villain Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming. But despite having stepped foot into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the 70-year-old star says he has never actually watched a Marvel movie.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most successful movie franchises out there, with 29 movies that have been released and more to follow. Popular as these blockbusters may be, Michael Keaton told Variety that he’s never seen an entire Marvel movie before. Said the actor,
I know people don’t believe this, that I’ve never seen an entire version of any of those movies — any Marvel movie, any other. And I don’t say that I don’t watch that because I’m highbrow — trust me! It’s not that. It’s just that there’s very little things I watch. I start watching something, and think it is great and I watch three episodes, but I have other shit to do!
It makes sense that Michael Keaton hasn't seen any of the Marvel movies when you consider the runtime of a lot of blockbusters. MCU adventures can feel like you are spending an entire night with the characters, with Avengers: Endgame being the longest Marvel film to date at over three hours and Thor: Love and Thunder being one of the shortest. You would definitely need to space out your schedule to fit in time to watch these superhero films.
Michael Keaton made his Marvel debut in Spider-Man: Homecoming as the villainous Adrian Toomes ak.a. Vulture. According to the Oscar nominee, Vulture was not your standard supervillain in that you could understand his intentions and relate to him in a way. His original business wasn't to create and weaponize Chitauri technology to sell on the black market or be a murderer, but to clean up sites of destruction so that he could put food on the table for his family. Keaton loved working with Marvel for all of the effort they put into their films as well as their talented cast and script. He told Variety no one could have known how big superhero films would grow today from when he first played Batman in the late 1980s.
We may not have seen a reappearance of Michael Keaton’s Vulture in Spider-Man: Far From Home or Spider-Man: No Way Home, but he did make a surprise appearance in a post-credits Morbius scene. Maybe that means we’ll get more Vulture in the future, but not in the MCU (unless he makes another trip across the multiverse).
Michael Keaton may not have watched a Marvel movie in full, but we can still expect him to use his acting chops well in the superhero world as a hero or foe. Until the Vulture makes another cameo again, we’ll just have to settle with seeing Keaton wear his memorable Batman costume again for The Flash. Audiences will be psyched to hear the Beetlejuice actor say his famous lines all over again. Hopefully one of those lines will be “...I’m Batman!”
You can watch Spider-Man: Homecoming on Starz and keep up with upcoming Marvel movies so you’ll be the first to know when Vulture will fly to your screens again.
