Gary Oldman's loyalties may lay with Christian Bale's Batman, but that doesn't mean he won't support Ben Affleck's upcoming turn as the Caped Crusader.
"He's got a hard cowl to climb into because I thought Christian had made such a signature on it," Oldman, who played Jim Gordon in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight franchise, told me at this week's Hollywood premiere of Robocop (in theaters now). "But Ben is a wonderful actor, so I'm intrigued to see what he does."
Oldman did advise Affleck not to pay attention to the fandemonium outcry over his casting. "All that stuff is always crazy," he said. "If you listen to the fans all the time we wouldn't have remade Robocop, no one would have made Batman. Ben will do fine. I think he'll do fine."
The Robocop reboot stars The Killing's Joel Kinneman in the title role with Abbie Cornish as his wife. Oldman costars as the cyborg lawman's creator, Dr. Dennett Norton.
Oldman recalled the first time he saw the original 1987 movie.
"I remember it being sort of sci-fi horror," he said. "There were a lot of heads rolling around with a lot of blood and guts and all that kind of stuff. I thought it was cool."