Joaquin Phoenix took plenty of awards, including the Oscar for best actor in his performance in Joker. However, back in the early 2000s, when Warner Bros film was looking to reboot The Dark Knight with a replacement feature Franchises, Phoenix almost played The Caped Crusader himself.
Clash Between The Director And Studio
Director Darren Aronofsky recently the emphasis on the time when he was trying to get Batman movie off to the ground. After successfully directing Requiem For A Dream, in 2000. Aronofsky previously revealed that he wanted Joaquin Phoenix to take the role of Bruce Wayne as Batman. But as said by the director, the studio wants to take the DC Comics superhero in a
completely different direction, and they wanted someone else in the lead role.
Darren Aronofsky Outbreaks The Things
It has been 20 years since Aronofsky’s acclaimed film Requiem for a Dream was released. Darren Aronofsky’s Batman, which was in development for a while at Warner Bros, but eventually never happened. Aronofsky wanted to adapt Frank Miller’s famous Batman: Year One comic and explore the very dark origin story for the character. Frank was also on board to adapt the comic to cast himself. Aronofsky recalled:
“It was an amazing thing because I was a big fan of his graphic novel work, so just getting to meet him was exciting back then.”
Now Aronofsky is revealing the hidden evidence of his never made Batman Movie. He told to the empire that real issue with the studio was casting, In Darren words,
“The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr, and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix. I remember thinking, ‘Uh oh, we’re making two different films here.’ That’s a true story.
It was a different time. The Batman I wrote was a way different type of taking than they ended up making.” Freddie Jr.was a very popular at the time, a teen heartthrob, and with roles in I Know What You Did Last Summer, She’s All That, and Scooby-Doo. But it was hard to imagine him as Batman. At the same, I’m having difficulty in casting Phoenix in the
role of Batman too.
Outcomes
The take of Aronofsky on Batman was so Dark that even Miller
himself was surprised where the Director wanted to take the superhero. He explained that this is what filmmakers wanted to go just opposite to the direction of the previous Batman movie in 1996. The director said:
“The Batman that was out before me was Batman & Robin, the famous one with the nipples on the Batsuit, hence I was trying to undermine that, and reinvent it. That’s where my head went.”
But as we all know, Darren Aronofsky’s project never came together. Instead, Warner Bros hired Christopher Nolan, who took some elements of Batman: Year One but gave them his own spin in Batman Begins. That eventually turned into the massively successful Dark Knight Trilogy, and the rest is history.
Watch the Untold Story here:
Sources: Slashfilm, Comicbookmovie
