The actor behind the titular supervillain in 2019’s Joker was the top choice to star in Darren Aronofsky’s own Batman movie back in the 2000s, long before the days of the DC Universe. Aronofsky is one of contemporary cinema’s most acclaimed filmmakers, directing high-regarded movies including Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, Mother!, and The Whale. Aronofsky may be one of the last directors you’d expect would helm a movie following DC Comics’ Caped Crusader, but he came close to bringing his vision for Batman to life.
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During promotion for his new movie, Caught Stealing, Darren Aronofsky sat down with Josh Horowitz for the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, where he opened up about his planned Batman movie. While stating he “really never took that seriously,” Aronofsky confirmed that Joaquin Phoenix was his choice to star as Bruce Wayne. “Famously, I pitched Joaquin,” Aronofsky reveals. “They were into Freddie Prinze Jr., so it was a very different world back then of, aesthetically, what was going on.” This major creative difference ultimately led to the movie being abandoned, even though it would have revitalized Batman on-screen.
What Would Darren Aronofsky & Frank Miller’s Batman Movie Have Looked Like?
At the time Aronofsky was approached by Warner Bros., he already had a few hits, but it was still relatively early in his filmmaking career. With his early projects, such as Pi, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain, Aronofsky was all about pushing boundaries and exploring the limits of cinema, and his Batman movie would have reflected this, too. Aronofsky teamed up with DC Comics writer Frank Miller to adapt the latter’s 1987 Batman: Year One story for the screen, and they went so far as to co-write a script together.
“The Batman that me and Frank [Miller] pitched, or wrote, was really, kind of, down and dirty, duct tape type of movie,” Aronofsky revealed during his Happy, Sad, Confused interview. “It was never really going to be selling Batmobiles.” He went on to reveal that the movie would have been R-rated, which was a rarity in superhero media at the time – Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins from 2005 was not R-rated. Miller’s Year One story from DC Comics explored Bruce Wayne’s first year as the Dark Knight, building towards his first encounter with recently-transferred Gotham City detective Jim Gordon.
Over the years, details have emerged concerning Aronofsky and Miller’s script, revealing that it would have diverged from the comic story rather a lot. Bruce Wayne would have lost his fortune and become homeless, Alfred wouldn’t have been Wayne’s mentor, Gillain B. Loeb would have been the primary antagonist, and Selina Kyle’s Catwoman would have also been wildly different. Warner Bros. clearly wanted to go in a very different direction with someone like Freddie Prinze Jr. in the running, but some of the brooding personality and realistic approach to the character surely transferred into Nolan’s Batman Begins nevertheless.
Would you have wanted to see Darren Aronofsky’s take on Batman? Let us know in the comments!
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