George Clooney‘s Batman suit, heavily mocked yet a classic costume from Joel Schumacher’s 1997 film ‘Batman & Robin,’ is up for bidding at Heritage Auctions.
As per Heritage Auctions, Clooney’s Batman suit is “constructed of cast foam latex, vinyl, resin components, leather, and other mixed media elements all expertly painted, finished and assembled on a life-size pose-able mannequin with a hyper-realistic George Clooney head with prosthetic grade false eyes. Costume pieces include hero signature cowl, full-length superhero cape with 2-cape clips, muscle tunic with signature ‘Batman’ icon on the chest, muscled tights, peaked and finned gauntlet gloves, and knee-high character boots.”
The Batman nipple suit is one of several props from the Caped Crusader’s film career that will be auctioned off. Jim Carrey’s Riddler walking cane from ‘Batman Forever’ is also on the auction block (with an opening bid of $8,000), as is Jack Nicholson’s iconic purple Joker suit from Tim Burton’s original ‘Batman’ (with an opening bid of $65,000).
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The Batsuit in ‘Batman and Robin’ film was inspired by ‘Batman Forever’ and featured a metallic finish as well as arm fins. The bat chest emblem lacked the yellow colouring and was only a small oval in size. Magnets, a grapple gun, bat bombs, a laser, and a buzzsaw were among the tools included in the suit’s utility belt. The suit’s most notable feature, which many people criticise, is protruding nipples.
Jose Fernandez, costume designer for ‘Batman & Robin,’ detailed the strong design decision to highlight Batman’s nipples, first in the 1995 film ‘Batman Forever,’ starring Val Kilmer, and even more intensified for the 1997 sequel ‘Batman & Robin,’ starring George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell as the titular Gotham heroes.
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Talking about the suit in an interview with Mel Magazine, Fernandez said – “With Val Kilmer’s suit in Batman Forever, the nipples were one of those things that I added, it wasn’t fetish to me, it was more informed by Roman armour-like Centurions. And, in the comic books, the characters always looked like they were naked with spray paint on them, it was all about anatomy, and I like to push anatomy. I don’t know exactly where my head was back in the day, but that’s what I remember. And so, I added the nipples. I had no idea there was going to end up being all this buzz about it.”
Clooney has long been vocal about his dislike for the infamous costume, according to Variety, the ‘One Fine Day’ star stated in an interview- “It was a difficult film to be good in. With hindsight, it’s easy to look back at this and go, woah, that was really shit and I was really bad in it.”
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Over the years, the suit has received a lot of slack, first Batman’s director Tim Burton slammed studio Warner Bros. for approving the nipple suit stating- “Back then they went the other way. That’s the funny thing about it. But then I was like, ‘Wait a minute. Okay. Hold on a second here. You complain about me, I’m too weird, I’m too dark, and then you put nipples on the costume? Go fuck yourself.’ Seriously. So yeah, I think that’s why I didn’t end up [doing a third film.]”