Army of the Dead director Zack Snyder has revealed that his first Superman film, Man of Steel, almost took place in the same universe as Christopher Nolan's renowned The Dark Knight trilogy. This was rumored for a long time, especially when Man of Steel was in the early stages of development, but now Snyder has gone on the record to confirm that it almost happened.
Speaking to Happy Sad Confused Podcast, Snyder said, "It was not 100 percent off the table, we did talk about it a little bit. The whole thing is that, I think that it's difficult, and it would have been interesting because that would have meant, just doing the math, that the Batman – maybe that's why we didn't do it, that if we had done that the Batman in this movie would have been probably... It would've been Joseph [Gordon-Levitt]. Which could've been cool."
This shouldn't really come as a surprise since Nolan served as a producer on Man of Steel and more recently on Zack Snyder's Justice League. Plus, Man of Steel came out in 2013, only one year after the final film in Nolan's trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. At the end of the third film, Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) fakes his own death and runs off to retire in Florence with Selina Kyle/ Catwoman (Anne Hathaway). However, he leaves all his cool bat-stuff to Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, a police officer named John Blake, whose actual name is Robin (Get it?!).
While it's interesting to think about Henry Cavill's Superman and a Gordon-Levitt's Batman sharing the screen together, it's probably a good thing they didn't go in this direction. Even though Snyder's take on Superman was famously "dark and gritty," it's difficult to imagine super-powered aliens showing up in Nolan's ostensibly realistic Dark Knight universe. Also, having Gordon- Levitt in the role would have drastically changed the dynamic of the character, as his Batman would have been a freshman superhero rather than an older, more experienced vigilante. At the end of the day, Snyder doesn't seem to regret the decision, telling Happy Sad Confused, "I like that his thing doesn't get muddied by these other… It's a tight box and I'm glad I didn't fuck with it because it's a pretty nice trilogy and I enjoy it."
Upon release, Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy was a critical and commercial success. Nolan managed to rebrand the Batman mythos for a more mature audience, steeping the character in gritty realism. In particular, the second film of the trilogy, The Dark Knight, will likely go down in history as one of the greatest superhero movies of all time and earned actor Heath Ledger a posthumous Oscar for his role as the Joker. Man of Steel was Snyder's first DCEU film, and like Nolan he approached Superman in a more grounded and realistic way, asking the question, "what would it be like if there was actually a Superman?" Snyder introduced his own Batman in the follow-up film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Instead of redoing the character's origins, Snyder's Batman was older and more worn down after a lifetime of fighting crime. Portrayed by actor Ben Affleck, this version of the character was heavily inspired by Frank Miller's seminal graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, which similarly saw an aged Batman forced out of retirement and into a confrontation with Superman.
Man of Steel and The Dark Knight trilogy are available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: Happy Sad Confused Podcast