Recently a new ebook was published called 'Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman' , the author of this book claimed that Bale has a 50 million offer to return as Batman . Though this news started quite a storm in a teacup , people quickly forgot about it after Ben Affleck was cast as the the caped crusader . But I closely followed the case , and even after days after the release of the ebook WB didn't file anything legal against the book or even mentioning at any point it is crystal clear that the news is true .
But then why did Bale rejected the offer ? Why did he turned down the chance to hon the batmobile once again ? Well , I did some digging the last few weeks and I believe I have unearthed some very logical infos as to why Bale might have rejected . Here I go :
1) Nolan lesser involvement : The only way Bale would have reurned Batman 4 was if Nolan had a major hand on it . But when it became clear to him that Nolan has no aspiration to direct anything comic book related anytime soon Bale simply chose not to return .
2) Didn't want to taint the TDK trilogy : This is not only Bale's concern but I was led to believe that it is one of Nolan's concerns as well . Apparently Nolan was far from happy with how MoS turned out, he's so upset that he pulled out of producing World's Finest (he's only the executive producer of WF) . Remember folks Cristian Bale is one of those very few elite actors who are not afraid of taking franchise roles and at the same time retain their artistic integrity . So , he was very possibly not sold on the direction the story and his character would be headed to .
3) Complications of the DCCU : DCCU or otherwise known as the DC Cinematic Universe , the one his Batman would have been a part of (had he returned) will take a otherwise interesting direction . Get this , as of now WB plans to manage their solo heroes completely differently than the MCU . The plan is this : 'Each movie about a solo superhero will feature an extended cameo(15-30 minutes) from at least one more superhero' . If this is to be true then it's possible that Batman could end up being second fiddle in a future DCCU movie . But at this point in his career Bale won't play second fiddle to nobody (unless it's an oscar bait role) .
4) Money is not an issue : As explained on the second point Bale has a high level of artistic integrity . Also the 50 million offer was for 2 movies .
All in all , I have uncovered this infos and know for certain Bale didn't come back for at least one of these reasons , could turn out to be all three though .