Danny DeVito Evokes the Penguin and Playfully Confronts Michael Keaton/Batman at the Oscars: ‘He Threw Me Out a Window!’
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito had a “Twins” reunion at the Oscars as they joined forces to present best visual effects to “Godzilla Minus One” and best film editing to “Oppenheimer.” But it was their jokes about Batman that stole the show and had the Oscars audience uproariously laughing.
“Arnold and I are presenting tonight together for a very obvious reason,” DeVito said.
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“We’ve both tried to kill Batman!” Schwarzenegger revealed to applause.
DeVito played the Penguin in Tim Burton’s “Batman Returns,” where he faced off against Michael Keaton’s Batman and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, faced off against George Clooney’s Batman as the villainous Mr. Freeze in the critical flop “Batman and Robin.” At the Oscars, Schwarzenegger said that his villain was defeated after Batman “used my one weakness against me,” which was Mr. Freeze’s love for his deceased wife.
“Oh. He threw me out a window!” DeVito said about his Penguin death. “There he is. He’s right here. He’s right there. Look!”
The camera then cut to Micheal Keaton in the audience. Keaton was a presenter at the Oscars earlier in the night, taking the stage alongside his “Beetlejuice” co-star Catherine O’Hara.
“You have a lot of nerve to show your face around here,” Schwarzenegger quipped to Keaton.
DeVito then yelled: “We’ll see you after the Governor’s Ball, pal!”
It’s been years since Schwarzenegger and DeVito played their comic book villains on the big screen, but it was only last year that Keaton popped back up as Batman. He reprised the superhero in a supporting role opposite Ezra Miller in Warner Bros.’ “The Flash.”
“When [Keaton] arrived to the set, the Batcave was already finished and it was lit and everything,” “The Flash” director Andy Muschietti told IGN before the film opened. “He stayed like this [eyes wide] for a while. I didn’t want to interrupt him. I just wanted for him to take it in. Who knows what was going on there? But something was going on there.”
“It was funny because at one point during the scene where we shot him in the full suit, he was like, ‘Can you take a picture? It’s for my grandson,’” Muschietti added. “It was one of those moments where he really showed something was inside that was very emotional.”
Watch Schwarzenegger and DeVito’s “Twins” reunion at the Oscars in the video below.
"Twins" co-stars and former Batman villains Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito jokingly berate Michael Keaton from the #Oscars stage. https://t.co/UNgGySGz3r pic.twitter.com/bPLTrLlcNk
— Variety (@Variety) March 11, 2024
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