Jonathan Nolan Says They Toyed With Idea Of Using The Riddler For ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

Jonathan Nolan (“Westworld”) is out in the world promoting his upcoming post-apocalyptic Amazon series “Fallout” and, of course, his time working on “The Dark Knight” trilogy with his brother Christopher Nolan is still a topic that journalists are insatiable curious about. While speaking with Josh Horowitz on his podcast, Happy Sad Confused, Nolan took a tour down memory lane, reflecting on all things Batman. During that conversation, Nolan revealed that The Riddler was indeed one of the Batman rogues the writing team discussed during the creative process of “The Dark Knight Rises,” the third film in the trilogy that ultimately saw Tom Hardy playing the vicious masked antagonist, Bane.

“We had these conversations,” Nolan said about the Riddler and what Batman antagonist to tackle next. “Bane came out of a conversation with [‘Batman Begins’ screenwriter] David [Goyer] and Chris; I was unsure about that at the story stage, but I [it didn’t want it to be] back seat driving. Chris understood that you want what he had done with Heath [Ledger]— you didn’t want to go anywhere near it.”

“I started to play with the idea of the Riddler and what could be done with that character,” Nolan admitted, “But it did feel like close enough to the space of what we had done with Heath, and you really needed to [change direction].”

READ MORE: Jonathan Nolan Says Christopher Nolan Was Initially “On The Fence” About Making More ‘Batman’ Films After ‘Batman’ Begins’

“There’s another genre shift there,” he explained about their reasoning for trying to go in a different direction. “One of the things I was excited about’ The Dark Knight Rises’ was that if you do a kind of urban crime genre for [‘The Dark Knight’], the third one was a post-apocalyptic film.”

Fans might remember that the Riddler was a villain rumored for “The Dark Knight Rises” in the early days, and it looks like Nolan is at least confirming those conversations (David S. Goyer also recently admitted that Warner Bros. had pitched Leonardo DiCaprio for the character at one point too). The Riddler ultimately was used for Matt Reeves’ first installment of “The Batman” trilogy, played by Paul Dano, aiming for a menacing serial killer angle for the genius trickster.

In the meantime, we’re still waiting for official word on what villains we’ll see in “The Batman Part II” other than Colin Farrell’s Penguin. In theory, Dano’s Riddler could return as a figure next to Barry Keoghan’s Joker in Arkham Asylum. The newly minted DC Studios could ostensibly also be another entry point for the villain in things like “The Brave & The Bold,” but knowing the way these modern superhero films work, they’ll likely want to work on a fresh bad guy take instead.