How The Twins Reunion At The 2024 Oscars Became An Explicit Batman Villain Team-Up

The annual Academy Awards telecast tends to be a time of reunions and reminiscence. The nostalgia occasionally runs so thickly that it can make viewers think of more than one beloved franchise reunion at a time. So it was when Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger teamed up to present the Best Film Editing award at the 2024 Academy Awards that audiences likely remembered that they once played two hopelessly mismatched twins ... or that they both menaced Bruce Wayne in two entirely different films.

Of course, DeVito plays the slimy, menacing Penguin in "Batman Returns," while Schwarzenegger is the pun-filled Mr. Freeze in "Batman and Robin." DeVito explained to the audience that they were presenting together for this reason. "We both tried to kill Batman," Schwarzenegger clarified. They traded stories about how their characters died: Mr. Freeze surrendered after learning his beloved wife was still alive, while in "Batman Returns," Batman threw the Penguin out a window. DeVito soon spied Michael Keaton in the audience and pointed him out. "You have a lot of nerve to show your face here," Schwarzenegger said. "You're a real beak-breaker. I'm gonna see you after the Governors Ball, pal!" said DeVito. For his part, Keaton played into the bit, arching his eyebrows and glowering at the twosome.

DeVito and Schwarzenegger have been having quite a bit of fun with their interconnected public personas lately, appearing in a recent Super Bowl commercial together — and stoking up hope that their "Twins" sequel might surface after all.

2024 has seen more than one reunion between Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In a commercial that debuted at Super Bowl 2024, the twosome appeared in an Allstate Insurance advertisement. The ad sees Schwarzenegger fail to pronounce the company's slogan properly. Unable to capture the right magic in take after take, the company finally brings in DeVito to do the honors, and the result is a rousing ovation at the commercial's big-screen debut. While DeVito is jazzed, Schwarzenegger is understandably jealous.

The twosome did have one more reunion planned. A big-screen reunion between Julius and Vincent Benedict had been plotted, entitled "Triplets." The film was announced in 2021 and was set to co-star Tracy Morgan as a third, previously unheralded Benedict sibling, whom the now-estranged twosome must reunite to find. The film was well into the scripting stages, with Josh Gad and Ryan Dixon putting their pens to the project. But per The Hollywood Reporter, producer-director Jason Reitman had put the project on hold. Reitman's choice came after the death of his father, "Twins" director Ivan Reitman, who died at the age of 75 in 2022.

Hopefully, the next time DeVito and Schwarzenegger reunite will be on the long-gestating "Twins" sequel. Either that, or they can both return to play "Batman" villains again. You can't keep a bad Penguin down.