Why Michael Keaton Should Star in a Lost Movie or Limited Series Reboot

What if Michael Keaton had been the star of Lost? Well in fact that was the original plan back in the mid 2000s as Michael Keaton was originally approached by J.J. Abrams to play Jack Shephard on the hit TV show Lost in a premise that would have seen Keaton established as the series lead only to be killed off dramatically within the final ten minutes of the first hour of the show. This was a tactic producer J.J. Abrams had hoped to employ it in order to provide shock value to the audience so as to communicate that anything was possible on the show and anybody could die at any moment. However, this never came to be as the creatives decided that audiences would become too attached to Keaton in the role and thus talk was floated about Keaton potentially committing to an entire series which Keaton summarily rejected and thus Micheal Fox took on the role and led that series from its debut in 2004 to its conclusion in 2010 after six seasons. Rumors have surfaced about the potential of a Lost reboot potentially being made one day and I think this would be the perfect opportunity for Michael Keaton to take on the role of Jack Shephard and bring to life his own interpretation of the Lost saga.

 

 

Keaton wouldn’t want to commit to a full TV show but a big-screen movie reboot or a limited series on Hulu or something could definitely be in the cards as Keaton has proven himself a valuable commodity in his resurgence in the acting world over the past several years with a slew of critically acclaimed hits such as Spotlight (2015) and The Founder (2016) not to mention his forays back into the superhero world portraying Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and his upcoming reprisal as The Batman in The Flash movie next year. Disney could bring a Lost reboot starring Michael Keaton to the big screen or they could do a limited series with him on Hulu in the same way he is doing the limited series Dopesick co-starring with Katilyn Dever coming this October to the streaming service. 

 

 

It has been reported that in the original version of Lost before Micheal Fox got the role Keaton would have played Jack as one of the pilots of the crashed airplane rather than a doctor. They could use that storyline in the reboot and go for a Lost meets Cast Away vein as well as an Arrow vibe with Oliver Queen’s adventures on Lian Yu mirroring a cross between Batman and Lost and you have The Batman himself in Michael Keaton present and accounted for in this hypothetical reboot. As for who could join Keaton in this ensemble the potential is limitless as you could either go the route of casting a bunch of unknowns for his fellow plane crash survivors or they could go the route of casting A-list talent with such names as Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Matthew McConaughey, Rachel McAdams, Emily Wickersham, Candice Patton, and David Schwimmer joining the ensemble. I think the idea of David Schwimmer playing an island survivor is particularly intriguing as Schwimmer is more of an indie actor at heart despite the fame that Friends brought him and so I could see him really getting into the drama and nuance of what you could do with a Lost reboot particularly if you set up the potential for his character to be killed off midway through the story in some shocking and emotionally poignant way as well. 

 

 

Michael Keaton while not a part of the original Lost was certainly intrigued by the prospect of the project and had the following to say about why it ultimately didn’t work out in the end: 

"Yeah, you know, I started to feel badly about this – I think that got – because it sounds like … it didn’t exactly playout like that, and I always think, ‘Jeez, you know maybe has been misinterpreted, or that I mischaracterized that.’ J.J. and I had a conversation– and I like what he does – I thought ‘Well, this guy’s worth talking to, he’s real smart.’ I had read some things he had written, and he told me about this idea … it’s no news now, I’m not revealing anything.

He said, ‘Here’s what happens: the guy that you think is the lead dies in the last ten minutes,’ and I immediately –when I hear things like that – like Soderbergh calling and going, ‘Hey, I want Ray Nicolette to pop up in this movie,’ … those type of things intrigue me. AndI thought, ‘Yeah!’ The idea of doing an hour television show … I’m just too lazy. So I thought, ‘Wow, this is pretty good! Then I don’t have to be in the series!’ […]

 

I think what happened was – and I’ve never really talked to him about this – I guess maybe we had a brief conversation where … he thought better of [the twist], or the studio said ‘That ain’t gonna happen.’ And then there was kind of a half a conversation like ‘Well, do you have any more interest?’ So … it’s not like they offered it to me, and ‘Oh, I turned that down.’ 

Yes [the offer changed], and that didn’t interest me. And I know [Jack’s death] was what was going to happen, and that I probably would have done. Even though people would say, ‘Why would you ever do that, where you’re the big lead guy, and then you die?’ And I thought ‘Oh, that’s pretty interesting to me.’ And [J.J.]’s so good, you know you want to hang out with a guy like that.”

 

 If a Lost reboot ever materializes Keaton would certainly be a phenomenal choice to go with for the lead star whether his character gets killed off within the first 30 minutes of the movie or the first hour of the limited series or his character lives up until the very final moments of the story. He is a very intense and intellectual actor with an incredibly dynamic range so the level of drama and sophistication not to mention comedic levity he would bring to the role would be stellar to say the least. Keaton may have just celebrated his 70th birthday but he is in a class of action stars today that are continuously proving they still have what it takes to defy age and continue having riveting and exciting adventures onscreen alongside names like Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Mark Harmon and so forth. So how about it? Who else wants to see a reimagining of Lost starring Michael Keaton?