Batman: Year One (and casting ideas)

According to Dark Horizons, WB has accepted the latest script from Darren Aronofsky and Frank Miller. WB hopes to begin filming sometime next year. The film is slated for a 2003 release.

Do any of you have any opinions as to who WB will cast in the roles of the younger Batman/Bruce Wayne, Catwoman, and the Joker?

By the way, I had heard that the movie will be a cross between "The Killing Joke" and the 'Year One' comics. If that is indeed the case, than 'Year One' could turn out to be a truly special movie.

Apparently, Petersen is tentatively attached to doing the Batman/Superman (World's Finest) movie. The movie was put into development largely due to WB shelving the "Batman Beyond" movie, as well as WB's continuing struggles to get "Superman Lives" off the ground. That also looks like it's going to be permanently shelved.

'Year One' would be the first one to hit theaters, followed by "World's Finest" a year later. If "World's Finest" is a big hit, that would jumpstart a Superman franchise. From what I've heard, WB wants to have a Batman movie every other year, as well as a Superman movie. It'll look something like this...

2003 "Batman: Year One"
2004 "The World's Finest"
2005 'Year One' sequel
2006 a spin-off Superman movie
2007 another Batman sequel
2008 a Superman sequel

and so on. The other option is for WB to release both 'Year One' and 'World's Finest' in the same year. Release 'Year One' in May or June, followed by 'World's Finest' in December. They could start their Superman spin-off franchise a year early.

Or Jon Peters will pull off a minor miracle and actually resurrect "Superman Lives" from the dead. If that happens before any sort of pre-production begins on 'World's Finest' than WB will likely shelve the team-up movie and save it for later, after both franchises are either firmly established or running out of gas.

WB has a lot of options here, but the 'Year One' movie has to be a major hit for any of it to come to fruition. In any event, it'll definetly be interesting theater to see if all of this goes down.

If WB does go ahead and do the 'World's Finest' movie, than don't be surprised if Petersen gets George Clooney to don the cape and cowl again. The two reportedly had a wonderful time working together on "The Perfect Storm" and Clooney has apparently wanted to redeem himself in the eyes of "Batman" fans following the travesty that was "Batman & Robin".

Clooney keeps saying in interviews that he "killed the Batman franchise". I agree that the movie was horrible and he was actually ok in the movie. The main problem was Joel Schumacher. He seemed to be going for some sort of fetish art flick rather than a coherent action movie.

I think WB should do with 'Year One' what they did with the first Superman movie. Hire a soap actor (or any complete unknown) and turn him into Bruce Wayne/Batman like they did with Christopher Reeve in turning him into Superman.

With Ben Affleck already playing Daredevil, no one needs to worry about him donning the cape and cowl anytime soon.

I also thought Kilmer was the best Batman, but Keaton was better as Bruce Wayne in my opinion. Kilmer had no equel in the cape and cowl. He had the right amount of arrogance to play Batman. Keaton captured the tortured qualities of Wayne better than Kilmer did though. Still, Kilmer "looked" more the part than Keaton, which is no disrespect to how Keaton played the role.

The first one is clearly the best one, with a nod going to "Batman Returns" for how ballsy a movie it was, considering how dark a story it was. Kilmer was one of the few good things about "Batman Forever" and don't even get me started on the train wreck we know as B&R.

My wish for these new films is to be more like the Animated Series. Now that was Batman. The show respected Batman's comic book origins, as well as the dark mood set by Frank Miller's ground-breaking comic "The Dark Knight Returns".

Tim Burton got the tone right with the first two "Batman" movies, but the plots were incoherent at best. Here's hoping that Darren Aronofsky nails the material.

With the right director, a "Dark Knight Returns" movie would be epic.

I think one of these five directors would make one helluva good movie based on "The Dark Knight Returns". I also listed some of their best work...

Terry Gillium: "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", "Time Bandits", "Brazil", "The Fisher King", "Twelve Monkeys"

John McTiernan: "Predator","Die Hard", "The Hunt for Red October", "Die Hard With A Vengeance", "The 13th Warrior", "The Thomas Crown Affair"

Alex Proyas: "The Crow", "Dark City"

Ridley Scott: "Alien", "Blade Runner", "Black Rain", "Gladiator", "Hannibal", "Black Hawk Down"

The Wachowski brothers: "Bound", "The Matrix", "The Matrix Revisited", "The Matrix Revolutions"

These are the guys that I think would make a truly great 'Dark Knight' flick.