Clint Eastwood Was Offered A Batman Role?!
Remember that rant I went on a couple weeks back about how Clint Eastwood playing an elderly Batman would be the only thing that could trump Nolan's Batman movies at this stage in the series? Turns out in his new book Tales From Development Hell: The Greatest Movies Never Made? writer David Hughes discusses a time where Eastwood was actually in the running for Batman!
Most Batman fans know that Batman: Year One (released by DC earlier this year in animated form) was actually first developed to be Batman's next movie following the flop that was Batman and Robin. It is known that Darren Aronofsky was set to direct the film, and it was ultimately shelved for Batman Begins, but Hughes shares some additional unknown info about casting and Joel Schumacher's third pitch for a Batman film. Read a piece of the excerpt below!
Despite Schumacher’s interest in using Year One as the basis for a darker, grittier adaptation, in the summer of 1999 Warner Bros asked New York film-maker Darren Aronofsky, fresh from his breakthrough feature, Pi, how he might approach the Batman franchise. 'I told them I’d cast Clint Eastwood as the Dark Knight, and shoot it in Tokyo, doubling for Gotham City,' he says, only half-joking. 'That got their attention.' Whether inspired or undeterred, the studio was brave enough to open a dialogue with the avowed Bat-fan, who became interested in the idea of an adaptation of Year One.
Oh wow Schumacher had a terrible idea and Hollywood almost bought it? Where does that sound familiar? All I can say is thank the geek deities for not letting Eastwood fall under that direction Now for the Aronofsky pitch!
'The Batman franchise had just gone more and more back towards the TV show, so it became tongue-in-cheek, a grand farce, camp,' says Aronofsky. 'I pitched the complete opposite, which was totally bring-it-back-to-the-streets raw, trying to set it in a kind of real reality — no stages, no sets, shooting it all in inner cities across America, creating a very real feeling. My pitch was Death Wish or The French Connection meets Batman. In Year One, Gordon was kind of like Serpico, and Batman was kind of like Travis Bickle,' he adds, referring to police corruption whistle-blower Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino in the eponymous 1973 film, and Robert De Niro’s vigilante in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Aronofsky had already noted how Frank Miller’s acclaimed Sin City series had influenced his first film, Pi; in addition, the director already had a good working relationship with the writer/artist, since they had collaborated on an unproduced feature adaptation of Miller’s earlier graphic novel, Ronin. 'Our take was to infuse the [Batman] movie franchise with a dose of reality,' Aronofsky says. 'We tried to ask that eternal question: "What does it take for a real man to put on tights and fight crime?"’
You can read the entire first chapter over at Slashfilm. Are you as glad as I am Schumaker didn't get his wish of casting Clint Eastwood? Also, if you haven't already, sign my petition for Clint Eastwood in a Batman movie!
Email Me: MickJoest@Geektyrant.com Twitter: @MickJoest