Once upon a time, Mad Max maestro George Miller was supposed to direct a project titled Justice League Mortal for Warner Brothers. In the days prior to the launch of the DC Extended Universe with Man of Steel, Miller’s Justice League flick was going to feature actors like Armie Hammer as Batman and Common as Green Lantern.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Before long, the 2008 Writers Guild of America strike came to be and Justice League Mortal found itself on the chopping block. Ten years later, Hammer’s speaking up about the role he was slated to playing, calling it a “truly psychotic take” on the Caped Crusader.
Speaking with /Film, Hammer revealed he wanted his take on Bruce Wayne to be the darkest moviegoers have ever seen.
“I wanted this Batman character to be so dark,” Hammer reflected. “I was like look, no one – and this was George’s idea as well, this was really in the script – but no one ever really shows how truly psychotic this man has to be. Like this is a guy who chooses to put on a costume, in all black, and sneak around at night and beat the s*** out of people.”
Hammer described Wayne as a borderline schizophrenic guy who is only comfortable while wearing the cowl.
“So even in times when he would be sitting around, like let’s say he had his batsuit off and all that, he would be sitting down with the thing, looking at the thing with the cowl on, because that’s where he felt the most comfortable in his own weird, twisted way,” Hammer continued. “He was a neurotic, like borderline schizophrenic dude who didn’t trust a single person, including anyone in the Justice League, and had all the dirt on every single one of them, and was ready to take all of them down at the snap of a finger.”
Back in 2016, Miller went on record saying he was “attracted” to the project but it fell apart because of the quick time Warner Brothers had to put everything thing together in.
“I really was attracted to it,” Miller said. “But there was a writers strike looming. We had to cast it very quickly, which we did with Warner’s casting people. And we cast it really quickly and we mounted it very quickly. And it depended on a start date and it depended on some basic rebate legislation that had just got through a new Australian government.”
