Many remember the long gap between Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, but few recall that Darren Aronofsky was once attached to helm a Batman film. Yes, the Black Swan and mother! director planned an adaptation of Frank Miller’s iconic Batman: Year One.
When speaking with Empire Magazine, Aronofsky opened up about his choice of wanting Joaquin Phoenix, the Oscar-winning star of last year’s Joker, for the role of the Caped Crusader.
“The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr, and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix,” Aronofsky recalls. “I remember 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 also opened about calling upon Frank Miller to help shape his adaptation, even crediting Taxi Driver as a reference – another ironic spin as Phoenix would of course go on to play Batman’s greatest foe The Joker in last year’s clear nod to Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver, as well as The King of Comedy.
“It was an amazing thing because I was a big fan of his graphic novel work, so just getting to meet him was exciting back then. 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.”
SEE ALSO: Frank Miller talks Darren Aronofsky’s aborted Batman: Year One movie
With Darren Aronofsky only having directed cult classics like Pi and Requiem for a Dream at the time, it makes sense the studio would fear his darker take going too far. As we all know, Christopher Nolan would ultimately come in and take the franchise in a much more grounded and mainstream approach with The Dark Knight Trilogy.
