The Dark Knight Rises: Batman Confronts a New Villain

The Dark Knight Rises: Bane almost wasn't Batman's great enemy

One of Christopher Nolan's many successful films could have had a completely different destiny. We talk about The Dark Knight Risesthe film that collected more than a billion dollars at the box office. The screenwriters would have actually thought of another enemy before Bane. It was Jonathan Nolan, in the middle of a promotional tour for the Fallout series, who spilled the beans on one of the filming secrets. “We had discussions. Bane came out of a conversation with David and Chris. I wasn't really convinced at that point, but I didn't want to impose my view“, he explains.

I then started to play with the idea of ​​the Riddler, and what we could do with this character. Jonathan Nolan

The writers therefore began to think of other solutions and the idea of ​​the villain who could have replaced Bane appeared. The Riddler is a supervillain who first appeared in 1948 in DC Comics. The particularity of this character is that he has a fascination with puzzles. To the point of incorporating them into his death traps in order to prove his superiority. Finally not selected to appear in The Dark Knight Risesthe villain appeared as the enemy of Matt Reaves' Batman.

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The writers wanted to change style

The decision was made between the writers after numerous discussions about the villain Batman would face in their film. The Riddler was finally cast aside in favor of Bane, perfectly played by Tom Hardy. This choice was justified by the desire not to get too close to what had been done with Heath Ledger, who plays the Joker in the first opus of The Dark Knight trilogy.

But ultimately it was too close to what we had done with Heath, and we absolutely had to change direction. Jonathan Nolan

However, the boss of Warner Bros had himself expressed the wish to make a feature film with the Riddler. “You need to make a movie with The Riddler. Leonardo DiCaprio has to play The Riddler” he said to David Goyer. However, this was not the way of screenwriters, who were more used to make the story around the hero and not the bad guy.