Joker was a bigger success than even Warner Bros. expected, and there have been rumblings for a while now about a potential sequel and other villain-led spinoffs. Now, a report from Heroic Hollywood's Umberto Gonzalez indicates that there could be big plans in place for Bane.
Bear in mind that Gonzalez recently broke the news that Henry Cavill could be returning to the DCEU as Superman, along with the planned release of Zack Snyder's Justice League on HBO Max.
"After the surprise success of Joaquin Phoenix's award winning Joker, Heroic Hollywood has exclusively learned that there was going to be an attempt to pitch a Bane standalone film to DC executives," the site reports. "In a similar way to the Todd Philips film, it could've offered a filmmaker the chance to explore the villain's psyche with a character study, although hopefully with a little more brawling."
"A potential pitch for the film would have loosely used the Vengeance of Bane story from the comics as the basis for the script," the report continues. "The plot would've introduced Bane to the DC Universe revealing that his tragic origin began before he was even born. Since Batman is key to his motivation across the arc, the Bat could've existed somewhere in the film, even if it was just as a looming presence over Gotham City."
Unfortunately, this Bane project didn't even get to the pitch stage, but there's a good reason for that. Gonzalez concludes by noting that this potential standalone story is, "officially off the table, in the event that Warner Bros. might use him in a future Batman film."
In other words, it sounds like Matt Reeves might have plans to include Bane in a future sequel to The Batman, but nothing is confirmed in that respect, so we'll obviously just have to wait and see.
Are you hoping we see more Bane on the big scree?