While his contributions to the franchise are often overlooked, writer David S. Goyer was instrumental in the creation of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy.
The director enlisted Goyer to help him write the story and script for Batman Begins, while the scribe also penned the stories for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises before Christopher, and his brother Jonathan, penned the scripts. Could the team reunite for a fourth outing?
"I don’t think that's ever going to happen," Goyer stated during a recent edition of the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "And I wouldn’t want to do another Batman project either."
That tracks with what Nolan said as recently as during Oppenheimer's press tour but there were other exciting details to be found in this conversation. Among them was the fact Goyer pushed for the director to cast Jake Gyllenhaal as Bruce Wayne in place of Christian Bale!
Oh, and remember those hard-to-believe rumours about Leonardo DiCaprio being eyed to play The Riddler in The Dark Knight Rises? Many of you probably won't as those reports first did the rounds in the late 2000s/early 2010s, and most of us scoffed at them back then.
It turns out the rumours were true!
"After 'The Dark Knight,' the head of Warner Bros. at the premiere said, 'You got to do the Riddler. Leo as the Riddler. You got to tell Chris, Leo as The Riddler,'" Goyer recalls. "And that’s not the way we work." Nolan instead chose to focus on Bane and Catwoman, of course, all while introducing a new Batman in Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake/Robin.
While we're not getting another movie, Goyer confirms the character took over the mantle and became Gotham City's new Caped Crusader in Bruce's place.
The Dark Knight Trilogy consists of Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), all directed by Nolan. Collectively grossing over $2.4 billion at the worldwide box office, the trilogy has been ranked among the greatest ever made.
Batman was later rebooted for the DC Extended Universe when Ben Affleck took over the role in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. His time as the character has now ended, with Robert Pattinson playing the hero in Matt Reeves' Elseworlds Universe as part of The Batman franchise.
However, yet another new version of the character will grace our screens in DC Studios' The Brave and The Bold a few years from now.