Joaquin Phoenix almost played Batman in Darren Aronofsky’s movie

This was after Aronofsky’s 2000 movie Requiem for a Dream so he would have been following in the steps of Joel Schumacher’s much reviled Batman & Robin starring George Clooney. So if Aronofsky had gotten his Batman movie, there would be no Batman trilogy from Christopher Nolan and no Christian Bale’s Dark Knight.

Also, likely no Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.

Talking about how his take on the superhero would have looked like, Aronofsky added, “It was an amazing thing because I was a big fan of (Miller’s) graphic novel work, so just getting to meet him was exciting back then. 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.”