Jeremy Irons says the superhero blockbuster Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice deserved to receive hideous reviews. Irons played butler Alfred Pennyworth to Ben Affleck’s Batman/Bruce Wayne.
Zack Snyder’s film has so far made $871m (£595m) globally, despite its reputation as critical kryptonite. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Irons said the poor reviews reflected the film’s “muddled” storyline. “I mean it took $800m, so the kicking didn’t matter but it was sort of overstuffed,” he said.
Irons said he expected the film’s follow-up, next year’s Justice League: Part One, to be a better movie. “I think [it] will be simpler. The script is certainly a lot smaller, it’s more linear.”
Irons is also expected to appear as Pennyworth in a mooted forthcoming solo Batman film that features Affleck. “I’m tied into Batman at the minute, which is nice because it’s a bit of income,” he said.
The Oscar-winner said he based his well-regarded version of the Wayne family aide on encounters with men employed by the Getty family. “I had dinner a few times with Paul Getty, who was a neighbour of mine in Oxfordshire,” said Irons, 67. “You’d arrive for dinner and there’d be a very nice man to open the gate, a very nice man to park your car, another very nice man to take your coat and another very nice man to give you some champagne. They were all ex-SAS. So the whole place was surrounded by this level of threat, and I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s Alfred.’
He did not make clear whether he had met John Paul Getty Jr, who died in 2003, or his son John Paul Getty III, who died in 2011.
In other news from Warner Brothers’ nascent DC Comics cinematic universe, Jesse Eisenberg will return as Lex Luthor in the two forthcoming coming Justice League films.
