The Dark Knight Movie Casts Armie Hammer as a Vigilante — But It’s Not Batman

In 2008, the same year that Christian Bale’s watchful protector returned in the Christopher Nolan-directed The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. cast Armie Hammer as Batman in George Miller’s Justice League Mortal. That film — which would have also starred D.J. Cotrona as Superman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Adam Brody as the Flash, Common as Green Lantern, Santiago Cabrera as Aquaman, and Hugh Keays-Byrne as Martian Manhunter — never made it to screen, and then-unknown Hammer never donned the cape and cowl of the Dark Knight.

But now the embattled actor, who was accused of rape and “other acts of violence” in 2021, has been cast as a vigilante in Uwe Boll’s The Dark Knight. According to Variety, which first reported the news, Hammer plays “Sanders, who takes justice into his own hands as he sets out to hunt down criminals. While his crusade transforms him into a social media sensation and a hero in the eyes of the public, the local police chief sees him as a menace to society and aims to take him down.”

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Boll — best known for helming live-action video game adaptations like 2003’s House of the Dead, 2005’s Alone in the Dark, 2008’s Far Cry, and the In the Name of the King and the BloodRayne trilogies — is directing from an original script he wrote.

Besides a similar premise and title evoking one of the biggest blockbusters of the past two decades, executive producer Michael Roesch told Variety that Boll’s Dark Knight “is very different from Chris Nolan’s movie, so there is no danger of confusion.”

“With Armie Hammer in the lead role and more great actors to be announced soon, and with an outstanding script, we are excited to build up on the great response we got for First Shift and Run, and will have another strong movie soon,” Roesch added of Boll’s most recent films.

Added Boll of his 37th film as director, “The story of The Dark Knight couldn’t be a more current topic, and I’m excited to bring it to life with this excellent cast.” Boll is producing the film that will begin production in Croatia on Jan. 27, reuniting him with director of photography Mathias Neumann (Boll’s Assault on Wall Street, the Rampage trilogy), line producer Boris Velican (Blubberella), and editor Ethan Maniquis (First Shift).

Hammer first referenced the then-unnamed project during a recent appearance on the Your Mom’s House podcast, which includes a segment titled “Addressing The Cannibal Allegations” regarding his alleged cannibalistic fetishism.

“I’m turning down jobs. My dance card is getting pretty full,” The Social Network and Call Me by Your Name actor said. “By the way, that first job that I turned down after four years of this sh-t, it was the best feeling I’ve ever had. I’ve got these jobs, right? Not a single one of them came through an agent.”

Hammer’s post-Social Network career included such big budget bombs as 2013’s The Lone Ranger and 2015’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Most recently, he appeared opposite Gal Gadot and Kenneth Branagh in 2022’s Death on the Nile.