Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin, to this very date, remains a widely chastised cinematic disaster. Frowned upon by critics and mocked by the audience, the 1997 film was flogged for being the worst Batman film ever made.
Batman & Robin (1997)
From its campy elements and a clash of styles to poor casting paired with cheesy and inconsistent dialogues, there were so many oddities in the movie that people couldn’t stop nitpicking even if they wanted to. And as if all that wasn’t calamitous enough already, the George Clooney-led superhero flick paved the way for even more censure thanks to the controversies it ignited. Case in point, the infamous n**ple Batsuit and fat shaming of a cast member.
Batman & Robin – The Ultimate Recipe for Disaster
Not only did the WB flop become the subject of critical admonishment, but it also ended up being a box office bomb, grossing only $238.2 million globally against a hefty budget of $125-160 million. The Hollywood Reporter even deemed it an exorbitant “toy commercial” in the name of a movie. But besides the flashy and abject direction along with unimpressive dialogues and overall poor execution that contributed to the film’s wretchedness, several other controversial aspects were also to be blamed for its failure. Body shaming Batgirl was never going to bode well anyways.
Alicia Silverstone, who portrayed the female counterpart of George Clooney‘s Bruce Wayne, was put through a horrible time for gaining weight on set. Multiple scenes with Batgirl didn’t make it to the film because the wardrobe team was required to refit Silverstone’s costume while Batman & Robin was still in production.
Alicia Silverstone
“What is this girl’s big sin – that she ate some pizza?”, the director defended her after media outlets criticized the actress for being “too fat.” Schumacher standing up for her publicly was probably the only good thing about the entirety of the project.
Joel Schumacher’s Batman Film Made Alicia Silverstone Miserable
Sure, the filmmaker publicly defended the Clueless star and stood by her side through it all, but that didn’t mean she’d simply forget all the vile names the paparazzi called her or the disgusting things tabloids wrote about her. “Fatgirl” was certainly not what a 20-year-old actress would want to gain popularity for.
“That definitely wasn’t my [favorite] filmmaking experience,” Silverstone said of Batman & Robin in an interview with The Guardian. “There were working circumstances that were less than [favorable] in terms of how things went down.”
Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl
While she worked with industry A-listers like Clooney as well as Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Batman venture still held a trunk of bitter memories for her, and understandably so. For Silverstone, the movie was one big, horrible experience that made her “stop loving acting for a very long time,” probably rendering her as miserable as it did fans.
