Darren Aronofsky Says ‘The Joker’ Spinoff Sounds Like His Old ‘Batman’ Pitch

Various career steps have led to Darren Aronofsky‘s completely off the wall thriller “mother!” which opens this weekend. However, things might’ve gone very differently if Warner Bros. had agreed to back his daring vision for Batman way back in the day.

After Joel Schumacher destroyed the franchise with “Batman Forever” and “Batman & Robin,” Warner Bros. was looking for someone to bring the property back to life. So, Darren Aronofsky pitched an adaptation of Frank Miller‘s influential “Batman: Year One” that would be gritty as hell, and have a Bruce Wayne that’s even more grizzled and older than Ben Affleck‘s turn in “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.”

“I told them I’d cast Clint Eastwood as the Dark Knight, and shoot it in Tokyo, doubling for Gotham City,” Aronofsky later said. “That got their attention.”

Well, they didn’t bite, but the concept was pretty cool. Essentially, it would be a gadget free take on the character, with Batman rolling around a modified car, in a very blood and dirt take that would be ” ‘Death Wish‘ or ‘The French Connection‘ meets Batman,” That was just a bit too out there for the studio at the time, and they turned it down. Later, Christopher Nolan would stay serious with the material, but make it blockbuster friendly with “Batman Begins,” and the rest is history.

READ MORE: Jared Leto Admits He’s Confused About Warner Bros.’ Joker Plans

It would appear that Aronofsky is still simply a man ahead of his time, as R-rated superheroes are becoming a force thanks to “Deadpool” and “Logan.” Meanwhile, WB and DC‘s plans for a raw spinoff based on the Joker, that will see the villain playing “a gritty crime boss in a Scorsese-esque Gotham underworld,” speaks to a growing acceptance of interpretations of comic characters that don’t stay directly #onbrand.

However, as far as Aronofsky is concerned, that Joker concept inches pretty close to what he had intended way back when for Batman. Here’s what he told First Showing:

I think we were basically – whatever it is – 15 years too early. Because I hear the way they’re talking about the Joker movie and that’s exactly – that was my pitch. I was like: we’re going to shoot in East Detroit and East New York. We’re not building Gotham. The Batmobile – I wanted to be a Lincoln Continental with two bus engines in it.

….two bus engines, all duct taped together. It was the duct tape MacGyver Batman. And some of my ideas got out there through other films. Like the ring with “BW”, Bruce Wayne’s ring making the scar was our idea and I think that was in Zack’s or something. Which is fine, you write these ideas and they get out. We were all about reinventing it and trying to make it more Taxi Driver visceral. That was the whole pitch. But the toy people were like, “oh it can’t be a Lincoln Continental, you have to make a Batmobile.”

And I think with Chris [Nolan’s] work, which was great, it was just – he hit it [out of the park]. He was able to get the darkness in, and the psychology of the character, yet he was still able to give the gizmo thing, which I wasn’t ever really interested in. So, I think that’s the back story. I think we were ahead of our time. And I was always like; why can’t we make a more lower-budget rated-R [movie], just like in comics you have different brands but and now they’re finally doing that. They’re doing the spinoffs, which is great. This is an exciting time because they’ll be able to take more risks and we won’t be seeing the same superhero movie over and over again. You’ll get things like Deadpool, which was a relief as compared to seeing the same film over and over again.

It would seem Aronofsky’s story does evolve over time (I guess Japan was a fleeting dream), but nonetheless, the director would be taken much more seriously now with that idea than back then. We’d love to see this made, but for a brand as huge as Batman, limiting that potential audience with a niche movie probably isn’t going to be something an executive will green light anytime soon.

But if you just want to see Batman kick ass, he’ll be back on the big screen in “Justice League” on November 17th.