Almost Batman: 9 Actors Who Nearly Played Bruce Wayne

The first man to ever bring Batman to life in a live-action adaptation is the legendary Adam West. Co-starring with Burt Ward as Robin, West led the original Batman TV series from the ’60s, which was later made into a movie. Even after half a century with many other actors stepping into the role since, West is still regarded by many as the very best Batman of them all.

Of course, West was not the only actor in contention to be Bruce Wayne, as film and TV actor Lyle Waggoner had also screen-tested for the role. After losing out on playing Batman, Waggoner would soon go on to find his own success on The Carol Burnett Show and the Wonder Woman TV series.

By the early ’80s, Warner Bros. had decided to develop a new Batman movie based on the success of their Superman films. In 1983, Tom Mankiewicz wrote a screenplay presenting a new origin story for Batman and Robin. At one point, Ghostbusters helmer Ivan Reitman was attached to direct, and he was envisioning Bill Murray playing Batman with Eddie Murphy as Robin.

In the midst of multiple script rewrites, Reitman ultimately left the project, and his idea of casting Bill Murray as Bruce Wayne went along with him.

When Tim Burton officially signed on to direct Batman, he was tasked with casting an actor capable of filling the legendary Adam West’s shoes. The studio was pushing for him to go with an action movie star, and at one point, Burton approached Pierce Brosnan to play the role. The future James Bond turned the role down, but has since admitted in an online Q&A that doing so was a mistake.

“I just couldn’t really take it seriously, any man who wears his underpants outside his pants just cannot be taken seriously,” Brosnan said on Reddit. “That was my foolish take on it. It was a joke, I thought. But how wrong was I?”

Michael Keaton wound up playing the Dark Knight for Tim Burton in Batman and Batman Returns before hanging up the cowl. With Keaton out for Batman Forever, director Joel Schumacher wound up casting Val Kilmer as the new Bruce Wayne. However, Kilmer may not have gotten the opportunity if another rising actor hadn’t turned the role down.

Prior to Kilmer’s casting, Training Day star Ethan Hawke was approached to star in Batman Forever, but turned the offer down. Like Brosnan, Hawke now regrets the decision. “I just didn’t want to go to the Knicks game and have everybody go, ‘Wow, you were a great Batman!’ That wasn’t my f–king goal in life,” Hawked said in 2011. “Now I wish I’d done it, because I could have used it to do other things.”

Because Val Kilmer and Joel Schumacher reportedly did not get along during the production of Batman Forever, Kilmer didn’t reprise the role for the next movie, Batman and Robin. Schumacher was then tasked with finding another new actor to play Bruce Wayne, and was originally interested in going with Flatliners and Backdraft star William Baldwin. In fact, it came so close to happening, Baldwin had even been told he’d gotten the part.

“And that Friday afternoon, I thought I was playing Batman – and then Monday morning, the headlines in the trades said that George Clooney had gotten the part. So apparently, I did actually come very close,” Baldwin explained in 2009. He would later go on to voice the Caped Crusader in the animated film Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths in 2010.

After Batman and Robin brought about a disappointing critical reception, Warner Bros. wanted to take the series in another direction. The Wrestler and mother! helmer Darren Aronofsky was tapped at one point to develop a new Batman film, which would have been based on Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One graphic novel. With the idea of aiming for a hard R-rating, the potential film would have starred our next Joker, Joaquin Phoenix, as the Caped Crusader.

“I always wanted Joaquin Phoenix for Batman,” Aronofsky said in a 2007 interview. However, perhaps Aronofsky’s vision of such a gritty Batman story was a touch too dark. About the project falling through, he adds: “It’s funny, I think we were just sort of out of time with our idea.”

Following Aronofsky’s departure, filmmaker Christopher Nolan was hired by Warner Bros. to develop the next Batman movie. His run would ultimately amount to a film trilogy, starting with Batman Begins in 2005. Christian Bale was the man in the Batsuit for all three of Nolan’s movies, but had he not gotten the part, Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy could have been drastically different.

A small handful of actors were in consideration to play Batman when it came to casting Batman Begins. Donnie Darko star Jake Gyllenhaal was among them, as it was reported in 2003 he was in contention along with Bale. After losing out on the role, Gyllenhaal will finally make his way into a comic book movie this year as the villainous Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far from Home.

Years before the creation of the DCEU, Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller was poised to helm a Justice League movie called Justice League: Mortal. With a reportedly strong script and a $250 million budget, the planned film was axed by the studio just days away from its scheduled production. This could have been because of the anticipation surrounding The Dark Knight, as Warner Bros. may not have wanted to confuse audiences by introducing a new Batman.

The Lone Ranger star Armie Hammer was all set to play Batman in the movie. Joining him would have been Adam Brody as The Flash, Common as Green Lantern, DJ Cotrona as Superman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, and Santiago Cabrera as Aquaman. His name has since come up as a rumored replacement for Ben Affleck in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, but he denied having any involvement in the project in 2019.

When the Nolan trilogy ended, a new version of Batman needed to be cast for the crossover movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Although Ben Affleck was one of the first choice and wound up securing the part, he wasn’t the only actor to discuss the role with director Zack Snyder. W. star Josh Brolin, who later found great fame as the legendary villain Thanos in the Avengers movies, had also been approached at the time to play Bruce Wayne.

“Me and Zack had a conversation about it,” Brolin said to Yahoo in 2014 about his decision to turn the role down, noting their creative differences. “There were several reasons why we said it wasn’t the best idea on both sides. I had mine and Zack had his.” Comparing the film’s critical reception to the Avengers movies would suggest Brolin made the right choice.

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