Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
Actor Michael Keaton has revealed the reason behind his departure from the
Batman franchise after two films. Keaton starred as the superhero in 1989’s Batman and 1992’s Batman Returns. Both of those films were directed by Tim Burton. Joel Schumacher was hired to direct 1995’s
Batman Forever, and Keaton decided to pass on starring in that film. Keaton said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcast that the script for the film “never was good.” He said he didn’t understand why Schumacher “wanted to do what he wanted to do” with the film, which was lighter in tone than the first two films. His decision to bypass the third film resulted in Val Kilmer stepping in as the caped crusader. Keaton is currently starring in The Founder, a biopic about fast food pioneer Ray Kroc.
Kim Kardashian has made her long-awaited return to social media, three months after going silent in the wake of being held up and robbed of millions of dollars in jewelry at a Paris hotel. Kardashian was known to be ever-present on social media before the Paris theft. But, in the robbery’s aftermath, Kardashian and other members of her famous family decided to re-evaluate their presence on social media platforms and scaled back on the number of posts they made. On Tuesday, Kardashian posted a picture of her with husband Kanye West and their two children on Instagram and captioned the photo, “family.” It was her first post on the platform since Oct. 3. She also returned to Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook with a series of posts. She responded to a fan’s excitement about her return with the note, “I missed you guys!” West and Kardashian have been the subject of breakup rumors after West’s hospitalization in November.
Late Late Show host James Corden says he feels like he has loved George Michael as long as he’s loved music. Corden paid tribute to the late singer on his program Tuesday night, showing a 2011 skit with Michael that he did for a charity event in their native England.
The skit featured Michael and Corden singing in a car and was a precursor to Corden’s wildly popular “Carpool Karaoke” segments. Corden says he showed the skit to Mariah Carey to persuade her to appear in his first “Carpool Karaoke” segment. Corden says Carey told him, “if it’s good enough for George, then it’s good enough for me.” Michael was found dead in his home in England on Christmas Day.