David S. Goyer has really been sharing the secrets recently! In the same interview where he spilled the Jedi beans about a possible Guillermo del Toro-directed “Star Wars” film, he’s jumped into some news from Gotham City.
Turns out, Goyer lobbed HARD for Jake Gyllenhaal to play the caped crusader in Christopher Nolan‘s “Batman Begins.”
“We would chat about all sorts of things. There were a number of people who had screen-tested, and I had advocated for Gyllenhaal,” Goyer told the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast. “I mean Gyllenhaal is amazing, Christian Bale is amazing, so who knows what.” Goyer went on to say he believes there is footage of Gyllenhaal auditioning in a Batman costume somewhere.
Goyer also shared that an unnamed executive from Warner Bros. wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play The Riddler. That performance would have been meant for the sequel, “The Dark Knight.” Goyer said that wouldn’t have worked as the films were made around themes, not villains.
There is so much to process and unpack with this information drop. Nolan’s trilogy are held in high regard by most Batman fans. The late Heath Ledger‘s Oscar-winning performance in second film is the standard for villains. How different could these movies have been with Gyllenhaal behind the cape and cowl? Would DiCaprio’s Riddler be spoken of like Ledger’s Joker?
Maybe Gyllenhaal could still play the Dark Knight in a different setting, perhaps one including Damien Wayne. We know Gyllenhaal can do good work as a villain. His version of Mysterio in “Spider-Man: Far From Home” was very entertaining. Gyllenhaal’s already hinted at the multiverse in the MCU, why not do the same for the DCEU?
