JOIN OUR WHATSAPP CHANNEL
'I Was Unsure About That': Jonathan Nolan Opens Up About His Dislike For The Dark Knight's Villain Bane; READ
When Jonathan Nolan co-wrote and produced the 2008 film The Dark Knight along with his brother director Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, he wasn’t onboard with Bane as villain. Ready why.
One of the most popular and highest-grossing films made by the Nolan Brothers is the 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises featuring DC's Caped Crusader, Batman (portrayed by Christian Bale), and his dangerous adversary Bane (portrayed by Tom Hardy). However, filmmaker Jonathan Nolan recently revealed in a podcast that he wasn’t at first convinced that Bane would be the antagonist in the film.
Instead, he was pushing for Riddler to be the primary villain of The Dark Knight Rises, the final film in The Dark Knight trilogy. Nolan co-wrote and produced the 2008 film The Dark Knight and Rises along with his brother director Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer.
![Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises [Photo Credits- IMDb]](https://www.pinkvilla.com/images/2024-04/1712834769_untitled-design-44.jpg "Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises [Photo Credits- IMDb]")
“We had these conversations. Bane came out of a conversation with David (Goyer) and Chris. I was unsure about that at the story stage, but I (didn’t want it to be) back seat driving. Chris understood that what we had done and what Heath (Ledger) had done with (Joker) — you didn’t want to go anywhere near it,” Nolan said in a recent episode on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. 
He continued, “I started to play with the idea of the Riddler and what could be done with that character. But it did feel like close enough to the space of what we had done with Heath, and you really needed to (change direction). There’s another genre shift there.”
“One of the things I was excited about for 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. You sort of go: Batman always saves the day and the city survives. Why can’t we destroy Gotham and see what happens afterwards?”
In fact, Goyer seemed to echo the same when he appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast last year. He mentioned how the head of Warner Bros. requested Nolan to cast Leonardo DiCaprio as the Riddler. “After ‘The Dark Knight,’ the head of Warner Bros. at the premiere said, ‘You got to do the Riddler. Leo as the Riddler. You got to tell Chris, Leo as the Riddler,’” Goyer said. To which he said, “That’s not the way we work.”
“Let’s do it in a very naturalistic way, so let’s figure out what kind of story we want to tell and what we thematically want to explore with Bruce, and then let’s figure out a villain that fits that story,” Goyer added.
The Westworld creator is currently promoting his latest Amazon Prime Video series Fallout and he appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast for the same. Premiered on April 10, the post-apolcalyptic drama is an adaptation of the popular role-playing video game franchise of the same name.
ALSO READ: What Is The Biggest Challenge Jonathan Nolan Faced While Filming Fallout? Director Reveals
Latest Articles
