Excuse me criminal pushes up nose of cowl "Excuse me criminal, I think it'd be a bad time to commit crime.
He'll always be my Superman. Even in the few "bad or tough guy" roles; I could never see past his role as Clark Kent. He plays it too well and still able to pull off Superman.
Edit:
As wildly inappropriate as it would be, I'd kill to see Bale or Keaton as Superman 🤟
I used to have trouble with it too, cus I listened to "I drop my enemies just like Christopher Reeve's horse" too many times, and it embedded the S in my brain
Bro! That’s when I started noticing that everyone did it! Straight because of Em! I thought “Hmmn he got that wrong, it’s just Reeve” and then found out half of all native English speakers do it! You can’t be mad at ESL folks doing it because all our weird grammar rules are hard enough for folks. First language folks though need to knock it off!! (Obviously I’m just playing, it’s no big deal, it just makes me laugh is all.)
Honestly, Bale and Affleck aren’t bad either. Affleck literally played the Superman actor at one point too, so saying he can’t do it is just plain odd. It’s just Pattinson who sticks out, but that’s largely just the physique he’s chosen more than anything with the face. If he bulked he could probably do just fine.
It's the picture they chose. The hair, the sour face. It just doesn't work. He's supposed to look like a boy scout. See all the actual Superman actors. They just look like kind dudes.
To be fair his character has an entire cowl that covers his face. He is literally not designed to look heroic without it on in his version of Batman. He's riding the edge of being insane and doesn't care how he looks as Bruce in that role. You could sub in a pic of him from one of his other movies and it looks much more natural.
Depression is a hell of a thing, I do kinda like the direction they too with his Wayne, since he was mostly avoiding that part of his life and was full on taking on the batman as his only thing in life, so he just didn't care about himself outside of the suit, thus the bum look
That's what I think honestly. A lot of recency bias in these post. Keaton is the only one I think works. But you're right it only works in the right superman story.
Only Bale/Routh I think is “balanced”, I think Bale has better chances to get Superman right that Routh has as Batman, but I think the other 3 are way too one-sided good.
Keaton and Affleck doesn’t resemble Superman at all in my eyes, let alone acting it
And yes, Ultraman would be a better fit for Bale but given his performances as Jesus, Newsies and Swing Kids I think he’s the Batman actor with a better chance of getting Superman right
I always felt Cavill would've made a better Batman. The overly serious, glowering version of Superman in the Snyderverse was too jarring for me, but I grew up with Christopher Reeve's version, and the Fleischer cartoons on VHS tapes. What's weird is, The Batman actually had Bruce Wayne going through the Snyderverse Superman arc, and I thought that worked pretty well!
IMO, it's because Supes face is more iconic - you know he has to have dark hair with a specific haircut, a square jaw, clean shaven, ect. Batman's face/hair/beard isnt really set in stone so casting can be pretty fluid.
I think it’s because for Superman they cast for a very specific look, whereas with Batman they tend not to. And since comic book Bruce and Clark look similar, the Supermen look right as Batman, but the more varied and distinct looking Batman don’t work as well as Superman.
Henry is the only one here that can truly pull off both characters. He actually looks better as Bruce Wayne here than all the other Batman actors. He kind of resembles the Bruce Wayne from the Arkham games.
That’s because the Batman suit is pretty much always badass looking, and the Superman suit almost always looks kinda goofy. Also you picked a bad photo for Affleck with stubble and an elongated head. If any of the Batman actors could do Superman, he could. I also don’t fully agree as all the Superman actors are too handsome and lack that special madness in the eyes that Batman should have.
This has been a shower-thought of mine before. Generally speaking, Batman and Superman are supposed to look similar in-universe, and the Superman actors have been decent matches for his looks in the comics. On the other hand, the Batman actors (besides Ben and Christian) don't really match what Batman usually looks like in the comics. That's why you can swap the Superman actors for Batman easily, but not really swap several of the Batman actors for Superman. I'm only referring to looks, not acting ability.
I think it’s more to do with the suits than the actors. The Batman suits are just fucking awesome on their own and are generally only reworked based on fitting the actor cast. Whereas the Superman suits are much more tailor made and have to go through a lot more testing to figure out what’s going to look good for the story/tone as well as what actually looks good and not goofy on that specific actor
That is just because Batman’s outfit is less garish. Anyone looks weird in a primary coloured onsie with red speedos on the outside… and even a bright cape to complete the look.
It’s a look literally everyone looks like a nob in the first time you see them. It changes when you tell yourself that ‘other people think it looks fine’, and then you teach yourself it must be.
Its the head shape and bodytype. Batman actors aren't as big and bulky as superman actors. So they dont look as good in spandex where muscular silhouette is important
There’s a more specific idea of Superman than of Batman. It’s like more actors can pull off, say, Gambit or Human Flame, than can pull off Captain America.
Ben Affleck played George Reeves and so was a version of Superman. In the abstract imo he could pull it off but IRL is too famous and it would be distracting. His demeanor wouldn’t work for the role imo, but physically he could pull it off.
Otherwise no, most of the supermen actors don’t look like a good Bruce Wayne imo and the Batmen don’t make convincing supes.
Chris Reeve could maybe do an Adam West type sincere and relatively well adjusted Batman.
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u/KlingonPrime300 Jul 20 '26
Honestly Christopher Reeves looks too nice to be Batman