Batman is as much a cinematic icon as he is a comic book one. The character's movies have been some of the crown jewels in Warner Bros. history, driving massive box office numbers and garnering critical acclaim. He has attracted some of the best filmmakers and actors, with many different incarnations of the character existing on the silver screen, ranging from Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy to a Lego version.
Update September 16, 2023: In honor of Batman Day, this article has been updated with even more Batman films that almost happened.
There are plenty of Batman movies, and there will be even more as Warner Bros. will have two separate Batman film franchises running at the same time: one in the new DCU overseen by James Gunn titled Batman: The Brave and the Bold and another outside of continuity in the form of The Batman Part II, the sequel to the highly acclaimed 2022 film. Yet, for all the Batman that has been on the big screen, there are plenty that almost happened. Making a movie is a long process, and they go over various stages of development. Here are some of the most notable Batman films that almost happened.
10 Ivan Reitman's The Batman
After the 1978 Superman movie directed by Richard Donner famously made the world believe a man could fly, one of the screenwriters responsible for the film was soon drafted to take a crack at Gotham City's brooding vigilante. Given his work on nearly a half dozen James Bond films, it's safe to assume that late screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz's take would have given us a much grittier version of the Caped Crusader than the campy 1960s TV series.
His script was reportedly inspired by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers' fan-favorite Detective Comics run, a bright spot in the '70s comic book scene that brought Batman to new heights. Once Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman came on board, Bill Murray was rumored to star, going up against David Bowie as the Joker. Eddie Murphy was one of the names thrown around as a potential Robin. Warner ordered multiple rewrites with various writers, which is funny considering that Mankiewicz himself served as a go-to script doctor for the studio, punching up Gremlins, The Goonies, and WarGames. With both Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy attached, it is likely the film would have been closer in tone to the Adam West series.
9 Tim Burton's Batman Forever
Tim Burton launched the Batman film franchise. The visionary filmmaker kicked off with 1989's Batman and continued with 1992's Batman Returns, and he was all set to return for the third film. Though Billy Dee Williams had already appeared as Burton's Harvey Dent, the Riddler would have been the only villain in Burton's version of Batman Forever, with the late Robin Williams at the top of the list for the role.
Warner Bros. was keen to introduce Marlon Wayans as Robin in his third film, which almost happened with Batman Returns. Ultimately, Warner Bros. decided to go in a different direction for the franchise following the outrage from parent groups around the mature tone of Batman Returns. After Burton departed the film, Keaton also walked away, and while Robin would eventually be brought in, Waynes was dropped from the film.
8 Joel Schumacher's Batman Unchained
Like Tim Burton, Lost Boys director Joel Schumacher made two Batman films, serving as sequels to Burton's films rather than going the reboot route. Batman Forever, with Val Kilmer in the lead, was certainly less strange and more family-friendly than Batman Returns while still maintaining a bit of balance. But Schumacher's follow-up, with George Clooney as Bruce Wayne, stalled the franchise, scaring Hollywood away from big-budget superhero movies altogether for a minute. A notoriously campy Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Batgirl, and bat nipples were among the many problems that made Batman & Robin a massive failure.
Of course, prior to its release, the franchise was doing well enough that a third Schumacher film seemed like a given. A script was already in place, one that would have seen the Scarecrow as the villain and a move back toward the strange. Batman Unchained, often erroneously referred to as Batman Triumphant by fans, would have introduced Harley Quinn, possibly played by either Courtney Love or Madonna, and this version would be the daughter of the Joker.
Schumacher wanted Nicholas Cage to play the main villain, Scarecrow. The story would see Batman locked inside Arkham Asylum as Scarecrow dosed him with fear gas. The script would have brought back every single Batman villain from the previous films in a big hallucination set piece where Batman was put on trial by all of his previous film villains. Penguin, Catwoman, Riddler, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, and Poison Ivy would all be on hand, culminating in the onscreen return of Jack Nicholson as the Joker.
But alas, the poor reception to Batman & Robin put Schumacher's future with the franchise in jeopardy. The fact that gathering the likes of Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfieffer, Jim Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman, and Jack Nicholson together in a single movie would have made this one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive) scripts ever produced certainly didn't help. Despite rumored ideas, like Kurt Russell, for recasting Batman, Clooney was still signed on for another Batman movie. As recently as 1997, he was telling reporters he'd be willing to do it while acknowledging the shortcomings of Batman & Robin.
7 Boaz Yakin's Batman Beyond
In the summer of 2017, rumors kicked into high gear that Ben Affleck had signed on to make an entire trilogy of Batman films with director Matt Reeves, who took over the standalone film, The Batman, originally to be written and directed by Affleck himself. The trilogy was said to set up Batman Beyond, the futuristic story of a younger Batman protégé mentored by Bruce Wayne. This would make sense, given that Affleck was already in his 40s when he first appeared as the character.
But a Batman Beyond film nearly happened a long time ago, back when the success of the Batman Beyond television series was fresh in the studio's mind. Co-creators Alan Burnett and Paul Dini were tasked with writing a live-action adaptation of the Terry McGinnis character's story for Remember the Titans director Boaz Yakin. Incidentally, Yakin's first major credit was for another comic book film; he wrote the script for Marvel's 1989 version of The Punisher, which starred Dolph Lundgren. The project never made it off the ground as the studio instead focused on a Batman reboot.
6 Darren Aronofsky's Batman: Year One
Eventually, Warner Bros. decided the best way to handle Batman was to reboot the character altogether, going back to an origin story. Schumacher's desire to mine some of Frank Miller's comic book material must have made an impression, as the reboot idea was originally set to center around Miller's Batman: Year One story. The studio hired Miller to work up what became a typically Miller-esque script filled with adult themes and violence. They paired him with co-writer and director Darren Aronofsky, fresh off of Pi.
Years later, Miller would recount to The Hollywood Reporter that Aronofsky's take on the character was even darker than he was. The story the two of them cooked up certainly would have been Rated-R and was unlikely to cater to the massive merchandising surrounding the franchise. They rewrote much of Batman's origin, even departing from Year One. Aronofsky would later describe his take as Death Wish or The French Connection meets Batman. He saw Jim Gordon as Serpico and Batman as someone like Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle. It was a dramatic reworking of the Batman franchise, and Warner Bros. passed on in favor of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins.
5 Wolfgang Petersen's Batman vs. Superman
While all of these various ideas were getting kicked around, there was actually a Batman vs. Superman movie in development more than a decade before the release of the one we got. There hadn't been a Superman movie since 1987's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Tim Burton nearly made his Superman Lives with Nicolas Cage, as chronicled in the documentary, The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened? Charlie's Angels and music video director McG, Rush Hour franchise head Brett Ratner, and showrunner J.J. Abrams of TV's Alias were all involved with Superman at various stages, with Ratner eventually swapping franchises, for better or worse, with X-Men director Bryan Singer. Ratner made X-Men: The Last Stand, and Singer was able to finally get the Man of Steel back off the ground with Superman Returns.
But around 2002, the trades were abuzz with talk of Air Force One director Wolfgang Petersen's Batman vs. Superman movie. It was supposed to be shot in 2003 for release the following year. Se7en scribe Andrew Kevin Walker delivered a reportedly dark script, which the studio had rewritten by Akiva Goldsman, who had worked on both Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. Lex Luthor and the Joker were the villains. Reportedly, Josh Harnett was offered the part of Superman while Christan Bale, who would later play Batman in Batman Begins, was first offered the part for Batman vs. Superman. Ultimately, the studio decided they'd rather re-launch each character separately. Wolfgang Petersen moved on to direct Brad Pitt in Troy.
4 George Miller's Justice League: Mortal
There was almost a Justice League movie in 2009. Before we knew how awesome Mad Max: Fury Road would be, George Miller was all set to direct Justice League: Mortal, from a script by Kieran and Michele Mulroney, a husband and wife team who wrote Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows together. The storyline sounds a bit like the plot of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Like Tony Stark, Batman creates a bunch of robots to protect the world. But naturally, they turn evil.
What is probably the most interesting about Justice League: Mortal is how many heroes it would have included. D.J. Cotrona was cast as Superman. Armie Hammer was Batman alongside Megal Gale as Wonder Woman. Adam Brody, Common, and Santiago Cabrera were cast as The Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman, respectively. Original Mad Max veteran Hugh Keays-Byrne would have played Martian Manhunter. He ended up playing the main bad guy of Fury Road, Immortan Joe. Actor Jay Baruchel was cast as businessman Maxwell Lord, with Teresa Palmer as Talia al Ghul.
Fans have long salivated over concept art, sculptures, and storyboards from Justice League: Mortal, which was never made due to a number of factors, including the Writer's Strike, which prevented rewrites from happening in time to make the studio's desired 2009 release date. It remains one of the great what-ifs in superhero movie history, and had the movie been made, it could have altered the entire course of superhero movies forever.
3 Ben Affleck's The Batman
When Ben Affleck signed on to star as Batman in the DCEU, he had the desire to not only have him play the Caped Crusader but also both write and direct a new Batman film. Affleck was an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, having helmed the Best Picture winner Argo and had already won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting. The Batman was set for release after Justice League.
Various details have been sprinkled out about his plans for a Batman movie. The film was set to feature Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke, who would release the various villains of Arkham Asylum out to test Bruce Wayne and Batman. The film would reportedly feature many gadgets and villains from Batman's history. The project went through many drafts but was scrapped for a number of reasons.
The first was that Affleck had a terrible time during the Justice League reshoots. Following a divorce and a stay in rehab, Affleck decided to step away from Batman. While he originally intended to still star in the film and let another filmmaker direct it, he eventually decided to step away entirely, and the film then morphed into Matt Reeves's The Batman, which took place outside the DCEU.
2 The Lego Batman 2
Warner Bros. secured the film rights to Lego, meaning when The Lego Movie came out, they were allowed to use any Warner Bros. property. Batman is the biggest film franchise that the studio owned next to Harry Potter, so Batman got a main role in 2014's The Lego Movie, with Will Arnett voicing the character. The character was so popular he got his own spin-off film, The Lego Batman Movie, in 2017. That was also a huge hit, and plans were put in place for a sequel.
The film was set to be titled Lego Superfriends and would have focused on Batman's relationship with the rest of the Justice League, particularly Superman. Lex Luthor would be the main villain, and like Justice League Mortal, it would have featured the OMAC. The film was planned for release in 2022, but following the box office disappointment of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, Warner Bros. gave up the film rights, and Universal Pictures quickly grabbed them. This canceled the sequel as DC Comics is owned by Warner Bros.
1 Michael Keaton's Long-Term DCEU Plans
Affleck would reprise his role as Bruce Wayne for one final film, 2023's The Flash. That film underwent multiple delays, and by the time it did hit theaters, any plans for the future of the DCEU were scrapped in favor of letting James Gunn craft an entirely new DC Universe for film and television. Yet the original plan was to use The Flash to give the DCEU a slight reboot, finding a way out for Ben Affleck's Batman and bringing back fan favorite Michael Keaton.
Michael Keaton did return in The Flash, yet the end of the movie was very different. Originally, it would be Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne who meets Barry Allen in the reset DC Universe, setting him up as the new Batman for the franchise and allowing Affleck to retire from the part. Keaton's role was described as being very much like Nick Fury in the MCU, where he would be a major supporting character in other projects. The first was Batgirl, and then he would appear in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
Yet now those plans are entirely scrapped. Warner Bros. Discovery canceled the finished Batgirl movie to never release it, and Keaton's part from Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has reportedly been cut. Keaton's role at the end of The Flash was cut and replaced with George Clooney, reprising his role from Batman and Robin. The entire plans for the DCEU Batman were changed and scrapped multiple times, and now here is hoping that the upcoming Batman: The Brave and the Bold actually happens.