There is little doubt that the Dark Knight film trilogy was a huge success for Warner Bros. but there was a time when the studio wanted to include more big names into the movies. It has just been revealed that the Batman films almost featured Leonardo DiCaprio as The Riddler. However, as writer David S. Goyer explains, Christopher Nolan was not interested in taking that direction.
David S. Goyer was recently a guest of the Happy Sad Confused podcast where he discussed some of the major titles he has worked on. Naturally, that included the Dark Knight movies and not surprisingly, the screenwriter had a major bombshell to drop.
"We had all these pitches. I remember at The Dark Knight [premiere], the head of Warner Bros. said, ‘You gotta do the Riddler. Leo [DiCaprio] as the Riddler,’" Goyer said. "That’s not the way we work – not to take anything away from him."
It's not exactly an odd choice. After all, Chris Nolan did work with DiCaprio on Inception and that was a huge hit on its own. Moreover, Nolan tends to work with notable actors and the list happens to include the Revenant star. On the other hand, Goyer explained that Warner Bros. had other plans for the franchise.
"I had a sense – with the Spider-Man movies or when superhero movies started getting made and you had sequels – that the studios would always say ‘OK, who’s our villain of the next movie going to be? And let’s build a movie around that,’" he said. Goyer pointed out that Nolan "was staunchly against that" and wanted to focus on Bruce Wayne instead of working on a film that would lead to a spin-off.
It may have been risky not to have someone like DiCaprio in the next movie but it still paid off. Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy certainly didn't need any big stars to make it to the big time. The three films, which included 2005's Batman Begins, 2008's The Dark Knight, and 2012's The Dark Knight Rises went on to become one of the most successful movies in recent history. It also confirmed yet again that Batman movies are just meant to make big bucks, no matter who the Caped Crusader faces.
The third of the Dark Knight series featured two of DiCaprio's Inception co-stars. Marion Cotillard debuted as Miranda Tate/Talia al Ghul while Tom Hardy bulked up to play Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. The film went on to become the highest-grossing Batman movie of all time, and Nolan didn't need DiCaprio to make it happen.
