There’s a heap of excitement for what Robert Pattinson and Matt Reeves bring to the Batman table when their take on the Caped Crusader is released. All this interest in the new version of the Dark Knight is stirring up feelings of “what if” from director Darren Aronofsky, who was once about to make arguably the wildest Batman film ever with none other than a pre-Joker Joaquin Phoenix
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Chatting to Empire about his plans for Batman, Darren Aronofsky revealed that he wanted to make a completely insane Dark Knight film that had Joaquin Phoenix underneath the cowl.
His idea took heavy inspiration from the influential Batman: Year One comic, and sprinkle everything with a healthy dash of 70s crime films like Death Wish, The French Connection, and Taxi Driver.
But as it is with Hollywood and Batman films at the time, a few things sunk what would’ve been an awesome project. Warner Bros. suits had different ideas on what they wanted a Batman film to be and wanted Freddie Prinze Jr. as a more clean-cut Bruce Wayne rather than whatever Joaquin brought to the table.
As Darren recalled: “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.”
If Darren’s bonkers Batman: Year One film idea sounds awfully similar to what Joaquin Phoenix ended up doing in Joker, that’s because it basically was.
During a 2017 press tour, Darren talked to Collider about Joker (which was in the works at the time) and he basically said that film’s concept “was my pitch” and how he really wanted to go gritty and weird with it.
Joaquin Phoenix suiting up as the Dark Knight in a Batman movie directed by Darren Aronofsky is one of those massive “what ifs” we’ll forever be asking and it honestly feels like we missed out on something special.
But had that happened, we may not have gotten Joker or Robert Pattinson as Batman. To borrow a phrase from a wise, two-faced man, Joaquin may not have died a hero (so to speak) but he did live long enough to see himself become a villain.
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