Back in 2015, Josh Hartnett told Playboy that he regretted "turning down" the chance to play the Dark Knight in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, and while the director has now confirmed that the actor was in the running, it sounds like he may have been slightly exaggerating how close he came to actually landing the role!
While chatting to the Happy Sad Confused podcast about his latest film, Oppenheimer, Nolan said that he did speak to Hartnett (Black Mirror, Sin City, 30 Days of Night) about potentially suiting-up as the Caped Crusader, but things never went much further than an "initial conversation" because he was "more interested" in appearing in the director's next project.
“No, it never got that far,” said the filmmaker when asked if he screen-tested Hartnett for the role. “I met with Josh and if I recall, he was a young actor whose work I was very interested in. I had an initial conversation with him, but he had read my brother’s script for The Prestige at the time and was more interested in getting involved with that. So it never went further than that.”
Hartnett has a supporting role in Oppenheimer alongside Cillian Murphy, who was also in contention to play Batman before Nolan realized he wasn't quite right for the character and offered him the role of Scarecrow instead.
Christian Bale ended up playing Bruce Wayne in Nolan's trilogy, and the rest is history - but a lot of fans believe Hartnett would make a great Batman now that he's a little older. Could he take another run at the role in James Gunn's The Brave and the Bold, perhaps?
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.