Jake Gyllenhaal was almost Nolan’s Batman
Well I just found a report from Gammasquad, the geek side of Uproxx, about Jake Gyllenhaal, who was apparently the favorite to play Batman in the Dark Knight Trilogy before Christian Bale auditioned for the role! Here’s what Bennett Hawkins of Gammasquad had to say on the matter:
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"Before Ben Affleck crammed his Beantown butt into the batsuit, Christian Bale and Jake Gyllenhaal were in the running for Christopher Nolan’s Batman revamp. Being only 24 at the time, Gyllenhaal was a little young for the role, but he did have writer David S. Goyer’s backing. It was only during Christian Bale’s audition that Goyer was swayed towards Bale to play the Dark Knight."
Read Bennett’s full article, including six other movie roles Gyllenhaal was up for and missed out on, here. Can you imagine the fans’ reaction if Jake Gyllenhaal had been cast as Batman?! I’m not talking about the complaints he could have recieved, complaints much like Ben Affleck is dealing with now, I’m talking about how people would have reacted when Batman’s Brokeback Mountain co-star was cast as his Joker?! The moment my husband, Caped Crusades staff writer Eric Chrisman, mentioned that Jake Gyllenhaal could have been Batman in the Dark Knight Trilogy I started laughing! He hadn’t even thought about what that would have meant in The Dark Kinght, in which Jake would have been playing Batman opposite Heather Ledger as Joker.
Personally I have always wondered if the Dark Knight might be gay, because I’m a crazy fan girl and already know which superhero I would love to see him date, but I can only imagine the vast number of jokes, ranging from gently teasing to homophobic, there would have been about Batman’s sexuality if the Brokeback Mountain co-stars had played Batman and Joker in Nolan’s Dark Knight.
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