George Clooney says watching 'Batman & Robin' physically hurts

Los Angeles, Dec 18: Hollywood star George Clooney says "Batman & Robin" was so bad that watching the film still "physically hurts" him.

Clooney, who played DC superhero Batman alongside Chris O'Donnell's Robin and Arnold Schwarzenegger's antagonist Mr Freeze in the 1997 movie, opened up about his production regrets during a virtual appearance on Howard Stern's SiriusXM show this week.

"It's so bad that it hurts to watch it... physically," the actor said when asked if he ever revisits the Joel Schumacher-directed Warner Bros movie. "I couldn't have done that one differently. It's a big machine, that thing. You have to remember at that point, I was just an actor getting an acting job. I wasn't the guy who could greenlight a movie," he added.

Clooney also revealed that he and Schwarzenegger did not shoot together for the film. "We never even saw each other. It's a big, monster machine, and I just sort of jumped in and did what they said." The actor said the film's debacle was the team's collective failure and no one person is to be blamed for it.

"The truth of the matter is, I was bad in it. Akiva Goldsman — who's won the Oscar for writing since then — he wrote the screenplay. And it's a terrible screenplay, he'll tell you. I'm terrible in it, I'll tell you. Joel Schumacher, who just passed away, directed it, and he'd say, 'Yeah, it didn't work.' We all whiffed on that one," he said.

Clooney took over the role of Batman following Val Kilmer's one film stint in "Batman Forever". Prior to Kilmer, Michael Keaton had a successful run as the Caped Crusader in two films directed by Tim Burton.