Darren Aronofsky Says Batman: Year One Was Nixed Over His Wanting Joaquin Phoenix

Darren Aronofsky is one of the filmmakers who tried to bring Batman to the big screen, and he says his film was nixed due to differences in casting the Dark Knight. Aronofsky was set to direct an adaptation of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One back in the early 2000s, and told Empire Magazine that the breaking point was that he wanted Joaquin Phoenix while the studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr.

“The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix,” Aronofsky told the site. “I remember thinking, ‘Uh oh, we’re making two different films here.’ That’s a true story. It was a different time. The Batman I wrote was definitely a way different type of take than they ended up making.”

Aronofsky recalled that he brought Miller on to help write the script, saying, “It was an amazing thing because I was a big fan of his graphic novel work. So just getting to meet him was exciting back then.”

He added that Miller was “shocked” by how dark he was wanting to go, saying that it would have gone into “torture territory.” He said, “The Batman that was out before me was Batman & Robin, the famous one with the nipples on the Batsuit, so I was really trying to undermine that, and reinvent it. That’s where my head went.”

Eventually the studio of course struck gold again with Batman thanks to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Aronofsky has gone on since to direct The Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah, and 2017’s controversial Mother!. As for Phoenix, he won an Oscar for playing Batman’s archrival in Joker.