Darren Aronofsky says Warner Bros. wanted Freddie Prinze Jr. to play Batman

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

As we eagerly anticipate what  Matt Reeves will do with Bruce Wayne and his ulter ego in THE BATMAN, once upon a time there was a fabled version of The Dark Knight's story that was going to be taken on by director Darren Aronofsky. In an interview with "Empire Magazine", Aronofsky is revealing more about what his time with the Caped Crusader and the unlikely actor that Warner Bros. wanted for the titular role. 

In the interview, Aronofsky reveals that the studio wanted SHE'S ALL THAT actor Freddie Prinze Jr. to play Bruce Wayne/Batman and he could tell with that choice that he was trying to make a much different film than the studio wanted:

"The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr. and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix. Iremember thinking, 'Uh oh, we're making two different films here.' That's a true story. It was a different time. The Batman I wrote was definitely a way different type of take than they ended up making."

Aronofsky doesn't go into details as to why they wanted Prinze Jr. but at the time he was working on the project, the actor was on the rise after the success of SHE'S ALL THAT. He was a young and up and coming actor that the studio was eager to cast. Aronofsky is right, this was a much different time, and even the final choice was much different than even the studio intended. Eventually, Christopher Nolan came into frame and 2005's BATMAN BEGINS was the result which ultimately saw Christian Bale landing the role.

Freddie Prinze Jr. definitely doesn't seem right for what Aronofsky was attempting to do. His take was going to be VERY dark. The director enlisted comic book superstar Frank Miller to adapt his graphic novel "Batman: Year One", but Aronofsky's sensibilities were even too dark fro Miller who explained this in a 2016 interview with "The Hollywood Reporter."

"It was the first time I worked on a Batman project with somebody whose vision of Batman was darker than mine. My Batman was too nice for him. I’d say, ‘Batman wouldn’t do that, he wouldn’t torture anybody."

The reason Aronofsky wanted to go really dark is because we were coming off the kid-friendly bomb of 1997's BATMAN & ROBIN. The director believed that he had to take things to the extreme in order to distance the brand from that failure:

"The Batman that was out before me was Batman & Robin, the famous one with the nipples on the Batsuit, so I was really trying to undermine that, and reinvent it. That's where my head went."

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Freddie Prinze Jr. In fact, I may envy him a bit since he's married to Buffy the Vampire Slayer herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, but this would've been a very misguided choice & I'm really happy it didn't happen. It's fun to think about what could've been but this is a very offbeat choice that was primarily guided by the studio wanting a bankable young actor in the lead. I do like Aronofsky as a filmmaker, even though he isn't 100% consistent, and it would've been cool to see his take but I'm glad it ultimately ended up in Christopher Nolan's hands.

Would YOU have liked to see Aronofsky take on BATMAN? Do YOU think Freddie Prinze Jr. would've been a good choice?