Jake Gyllenhaal Was David Goyer's Top Choice for Batman in Christopher Nolan's DARK KNIGHT Trilogy

The screenwriter of The Dark Knight Trilogy, David S. Goyer, recently shared a lot of behind the scene insight on some of the projects that he’s worked on over the years. When talking about Christopher Nolan’s Batman films on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Goyer confirmed that Jake Gyllenhaal was up for the role of Bruce Wayne / Batman, and Goyer wanted him to star in these movies. He was Goyer’s top choice.

When talking about Gyllenhaal, Goyer said:

“We would chat about all sorts of things. There were a number of people who had screen-tested, and I had advocated for Gyllenhaal. mean, Gyllenhaal is amazing, Christian Bale is amazing, so who knows what.”

When asked if there was any footage of Gyllenhaal’s screentest floating around wearing the Batman costume, he said: “I believe there is.” But, it hasn’t made its way online yet.

I’ve always liked Gyllenhaal and while Bale was awesome as Batman, I think that Gyllenhaal would’ve been great in the role as well. I guess there’s an alternate universe out there where Gyllenhaal was cast as Batman, and I wouldn’t mind seeing what that would be like.

Maybe one day his screen test will be released online. What do you think about Gyllenhaal starring in Nolan’s Batman films? Would he have worked? Gyllenhaal was also actually in the running for Matt Reeves’ The Batman early on in development.