Twenty years have passed since the landmark blockbuster Batman Begins, but when celebrating its anniversary on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, David S Goyer revealed that Christopher Nolan told him not to work on the Ben Affleck Batman films.
Goyer created the story for Batman Begins and co-wrote the script for the Interstellar director before continuing their superhero collaboration with The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
A year later, Warner Bros tried to expand their DC Comics output with Zack Snyder’s Superman origin story, Man of Steel, starring Henry Cavill, which Goyer co-wrote with Snyder.
A sequel was released in 2016 called Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, with Affleck taking on the role of the Gotham vigilante. However, Goyer has revealed that Nolan explicitly advised him not to get involved in another Batman via Ben Affleck.
“I remember Chris advising me not to work on the Affleck Batman,” he recalls. “Just because it’s confusing. We did one and just stick with that.”
Goyer ultimately ignored the advice of the Oscar-winning director and proceeded to write the script for Batman v Superman, which had grossed over $420m at the global box office over its debut weekend in 2016.
The screenwriter also shared that Warner Bros was “not happy: with his decision to feature Batman in costume only an hour into the movie’s runtime.
“No disrespect to the actors who played Bruce Wayne prior to this, and as moviegoers, we were always twiddling our thumbs waiting for the character to get into costume and for the movie to begin. But why is that?” he said.
Adamant to keep their storyline intact, Goyer said they were ready to “prosecute the case” with Warner Bros.
“We knew fairly early on that we needed the audience to fall in love with Bruce Wayne and that we needed to have an amazing action sequence, as amazing as something from Indiana Jones, that involves Bruce and not Batman”.
When it comes to his Blade trilogy, David S. Goyer told ScreenRant earlier this year he would be interested in writing a reboot for the MCU as he’s ‘always loved the character’ and has wondered why it has been taking so long stating he’s been ‘totally puzzled’ as a ‘huge Marvel fan’ himself.
