At the dawn of comic book cinema, Josh Hartnett was one of the most-requested actors in the business. He had talks with Christopher Nolan about joining the filmmaker’s Dark Knight trilogy at Bruce Wayne and he was offered the role of Clark Kent/Superman in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, a role that eventually went to Brandon Routh. In the days before the Marvel Cinematic Universe and monthly comic book films, Hartnett eventually passed to pursue smaller roles. The actor recently spoke with Variety and explained why.
“I didn’t turn down Spider-Man. I don’t know where that came from. I’d only turned down Superman as a straight-up offer,” the actorsays. “But I was, at that time of my career, where a lot of people were asking me to do those types of movies. I was having meetings with those directors and people were saying: ‘Would you be interested?’ I talked to them about what they were doing and I ultimately decided I wasn’t, but that was a very privileged place for a young man to be in. I’m a little bit outside of the box and had the leverage to do that, and that’s the direction I chose.”
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The actor then explained his talks with Nolan were rather preliminary, with no actual negotiations or offers taking place. Since then, Hartnett has largely focused on independent movies and 2020 might be his biggest year yet. Pending any delays, the actor could have four releases this year — Inherit The Viper, The Long Home, Valley Of The Gods, and Gut Instinct. His most recent major credits came from playing Ethan Chandler on Showtime’s Penny Dreadful.
Upcoming DC movies set to be released in the next two years include Birds of Prey on February 7th, Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5th, The Batman on June 25, 2021, The Suicide Squad on August 6, 2021, Black Adam on December 22, 2021, Shazam! 2 on April 1, 2022, The Flash on July 1, 2022, and Aquaman 2 on December 16, 2022.
Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for Stella Artois
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