How does a filmmaker figure out which villain to use a superhero film? Sometimes, it feels as if the studio mandates that a certain villain is included. But in the creation of the three ‘Dark Knight’ films, filmmaker Christopher Nolan and writer David S. Goyer took the selection of the villain to a natural place, letting the villain come to them as the storyline unfolds. That said, the studio still did try to pitch them on including a very famous actor to play a villain in “The Dark Knight Rises.”
Speaking as part of a larger discussion regarding Season 2 of “Foundation,” writer David S. Goyer joined Happy Sad Confused and spent a fair amount of time talking about Batman. You see, Goyer worked alongside Nolan as the screenwriter for the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy. And when it came to choosing villains for those films, Goyer talked about Nolan’s process.
“Chris is very process-driven,” Goyer explained. “And one of the things I think is revolutionary in hindsight is, that we did in the process was— I had this sense with the “Spider-Man’ movies and when these superhero movies started getting made and you had sequels that the studios would say, ‘OK, who is our villain of the next movie going to be? And let’s build a movie around that.”
He continued, “Chris was staunchly against that [approach]. Because he said, ‘That’s not a bottom, ground-up way of telling a story. Let’s do it in a very naturalistic way. Let’s figure out what kind of story we want to tell and what we want to thematically explore with Bruce and then let’s figure out a villain that fits that story.”
Goyer said the studio was constantly pitching them different ideas of villains once the franchise took off. And when it came time for the third film in the trilogy, a Warner Bros. executive had a very specific request for what villain should show up.
“We had all these pitches,” he recalled. “I remember after the ‘The Dark Knight,’ the head of Warner Bros. at the time, at the premiere said, ‘You gotta do The Riddler. Leo [DiCaprio] as the Riddler. You gotta tell Chris! Leo as The Riddler.’ And I had to say, ‘Dude, that’s not the way we work.’”
So, when it came to a third film, after the monumental (and Oscar-winning) success of “The Dark Knight, Goyer said that Nolan was looking for a new challenge for Batman. Someone who would challenge the hero spiritually and physically.
“The dirty secret of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is that it’s modeled after ‘Rocky III,’ you gotta get knocked down to get back up,” said Goyer. “He’s getting old and you need someone who is just a brute.”
The screenwriter then said, well, naturally, he had to pitch Bane, he made sense for that story and Nolan’s reaction at first was, “Bane? Oh man, he’s so cheesy, I dunno.”
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“But it’s a process,” Goyer added, “And it did seem that it had to be Bane and that is a process that I’ve carried [throughout my career].”
So, as we know, Bane became the villain of “The Dark Knight Rises,” and it was Tom Hardy under the mask. Eventually, WB did get The Riddler in a new ‘Batman’ movie, but it wasn’t until 2022’s “The Batman” and it was Paul Dano as the bad guy. We’ll have to wait and see if DiCaprio takes on one of these villain roles in a superhero film. You have to imagine it would be a tough sell for the actor.
You can see the full discussion below:
