Recently, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky stated in an interview that ‘Joker’ actor Joaquin Phoenix was the first choice to play Batman in the early 2000s, but, Warner Bros. did not approve thus the film was ultimately shelved.
Talking to Empire, “The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix. 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,” said the director.
Further, Aronofsky also stated, “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.”
Batman film was announced to be massively motivated by Frank Miller’s graphic novel, ‘Batman: Year One.’ Miller was, in fact, writing the script himself. “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,” Aronofsky said.
The title “Batman: Year One” has been used for an animation film, released in 2011 and directed by Lauren Montgomery and Sam Liu.
Joker is based on DC Comics characters, one of the most popular and highest-grossing movies of 2019. Directed and Produced by Todd Phillips, Joaquin Phoenix also bagged the Best Actor at the Oscars 2020 awards.