In “The Dark Knight,” Christian Bale’s Batman asks Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox for a new suit. And when trying to conceive of a decent reason for Batman needing such an upgrade, director Christopher Nolan realized he should just use the actual reason — i.e. that Christian Bale needed to be able to turn his head. And so, in a somewhat meta moment that seemed to speak directly to the complaints of so many Batman actors before Bale, the “Dark Knight” suit arrived complete with a cowl that allowed its wearer the luxury of being able to swivel their skull.
Which, it turns out, is pretty much what happened during the production of “The Flash.” As reported by Entertainment Weekly, during a press conference for the movie around the time CinemaCon was getting underway back in April, Andy and his sister/”Flash” producer Barbara Muschietti spoke about Keaton’s upgraded suit, with Andy explaining:
“You know the story. [Keaton] was like, ‘That old suit was impossible to work with.’ He was very frustrated because he couldn’t move his neck or anything. The design was perfect, but it’s very often in movies that the better a suit looks, the more uncomfortable it is.”
Barbara then added, “Alex Burns, our costume designer, made a fantastic suit where this guy could actually move his neck, lift his leg.” Considering Keaton previously claimed to have sustained permanent damage to his hip after attempting a kick in the original suit, that’s a pretty important upgrade.
