Michael Keaton To Play Actor Known for Playing Superhero, Wink-Wink

The ascent of Michael Keaton continues, but as he's long known, before he can reach the top, he must confront his most challenging role of all: Himself! Or at least a thinly-veiled version of himself.

Thus, he will now do that with Birdman, a dark comedy project that will see the actor playing a different, non-Keaton actor who also just so happens to be looking to regain the past glory of when he played an iconic superhero. But while actual Keaton famously played Batman, this fictional Keaton will have starred as a hero called Birdman. And while actual Keaton is reclaiming his faded glory by starring in everything this year, Birdman Keaton reportedly approaches the task from the Great White Way, mounting a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story.

Another key difference between actor and character: while Keaton would fucking nail that adaptation, this guy ends up having difficulties due to the play's egotistical leading man, who is apparently not the sort of giving actor Michael Keaton is. Emma Stone co-stars as fake-Keaton's daughter-cum-assistant, while Naomi Watts will play an actress and Zach Galifianakis will play the show's underhanded producer. In a departure from his usual heavy dramas, Babel and Biutiful director Alejandro González Iñárritu is directing from a script he wrote with Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo.

That's all that's known for now, but suffice to say, the Michael Keaton renaissance is still alive and well. As is Michael Keaton himself. Thank god.