Christopher Nolan’s film The Dark Knight tells the story of the superhero Batman. The series consists of a set of three Batman movies, which include Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
However, this wasn’t the original idea of the filmmaker, as Nolan had a different vision regarding the series. According to the makers of the film, they wanted to focus on the story of Gotham’s unsung hero, Harvey Dent, in the second installment of the film. Looking for a perfect fit for the character was great toil, but ultimately Nolan found the face of DC’s supervillain.
Christopher Nolan had a greater vision for Harvey Dent’s character
Christopher Nolan‘s Batman series is one of the most hyped series in the DC Universe. The aesthetics of Nolan’s film not only concentrate on the lead character but give equal importance to the film’s antagonist as well.
After the massive success of Batman Begins, the makers of the film decided to take a swing and narrate the story of the antagonist in the second film. Though the second film in the Batman series, The Dark Knight, depicts the tale of Batman, it wasn’t the original idea of the filmmaker. According to David S. Goyer,
“Bruce Wayne was the protagonist of the first film but we decided early on that he would not be the protagonist of the second film—that, in fact, Harvey Dent would be.”
Nolan had a similar idea for the character of Harvey Dent, as he believed that the transformation of Dent into Two-Face was of great significance in the film. During an interview, Nolan said,
“The way the story is constructed we always imagined that Harvey Dent would form the emotional arc of the story. His story, his tragedy would be, excuse me, the arc of the story, because The Joker, the purpose of The Joker for us was always that he has no arc, he has no development he doesn’t learn anything through the film, he’s an absolute.”
Since Nolan had a great vision for the antagonist of the film, he required a perfect fit for the role.
The perfect fit for Harvey Dent’s character wasn’t chosen at once
The grand vision of Nolan required a great actor to do justice to the character. For the role of Harvey Dent, Nolan first considered Matt Damon. However, eventually, the role went to Aaron Eckhart. After watching Eckhart’s previous work, Nolan got impressed and ended up casting him as Dent.
Indeed, Nolan has a keen eye for the perfect artist, as Echkart’s role as Dent was much appreciated by the audience. Apart from Damon, Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Phillippe were also in the race to play Harvey Dent.
Source: UPROXX
