Michael Keaton is Birdman, alongside Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, and Zach Galifianakis

By Sean O'Neal | March 5, 2013 | 10:52pm

Aux Features Film

In a casting notice that also sounds like a pretty good group who’s welcome to party with us anytime, Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, and Naomi Watts have all joined the upcoming Birdman. Fittingly, the dark comedy will be directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, who's known for wrangling big ensemble pieces like 21 Grams and Babel—both already the Cannonball Runs of our era, though this film will reportedly be even lighter. In it, Keaton takes on the self-referential role of a former actor who's famous for playing an iconic superhero, and whose bid for career revival somehow doesn’t include starring in a movie where he clones himself multiple times—even though that would be hilarious—but rather mounting a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, things then quickly go awry due to the demands of the egomaniacal leading man (a part yet to be cast), while Keaton is aided and/or tripped up by his recently rehabbed daughter/assistant (Stone), Galifianakis’ “conniving producer,” and Watts, in the notably less evocative role of “an actress in the play.” Hey, do you think there will be a line where Keaton says, “I’m Birdman?” And is there any chance that Jack Nicholson could take the part of the egomaniacal leading man? And then maybe he falls into a vat of acid and transforms into a freakishly deformed supervillain, and only Michael Keaton can stop him? We're no movie producers, but that seems like something you could sell.