Artnewspress :
Before Christian Bale was cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, Warner Bros. was trying to figure out what to do with the characters of Batman and Superman. In the early 2000s, the studio hired Sev7n screenwriter Andrew Walker to develop a script for a Batman vs. Superman film that would be directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Bale was approached to play Superman in that movie!
Petersen previously talked to MTV News and shared this bit of information, saying: “The studio got a single Superman script I think from J.J. Abrams at that time, and [Warner Bros. chief] Alan Horn was so torn – because it’s such a fascinating concept to do a Batman versus Superman film. And I still think it would be to do that. But the studio decided to try [a] separate version of Superman and Batman, and then maybe think about down the road if you want to bring them together in one film.”
In a previous interview with Fast Company, Walker discussed the pressure he was under while writing the movie, saying: “I was lucky enough to write Batman vs. Superman, but it led to a lot of insomnia. When I got those two characters to go off and fight, I was incredibly weighed by a sense of nervous purpose. It felt like a great responsibility to write these two incredibly iconic characters and the characters that surrounded them.”
Walker took on the challenge, though, and explained that the script was “a combination of material kind of stolen, rightfully and legally, from wonderful ideas from the comics and melding those into an original storyline. I think a lot of the inspiration, if not specifics . . . lie in Frank Miller’s work, specifically in those issues of The Dark Knight Returns.”
The reason the studio didn’t move forward with the project was because it was considered too dark, which is funny considering that ultimately they embraced the darkness in their future DC projects. The studio later hired Batman and Robin screenwriter Akiva Goldsman to rewrite Walker’s script. His version of the script obviously didn’t end up being produced either.
I loved Bale in the role of Batman, but I can’t help but be curious to think about what he might have brought to the Superman character had he played him. It’s kind of hard to imagine him in the role, but regardless, everything worked out in the end for him.
