Ever since Batman’s first cinematic appearance in the ’60s, audiences around the world have been fascinated by the ever-evolving Caped Crusader. Since the early days of Adam West’s goofy but sentimental take on the Dark Knight, viewers have been treated to several big-screen incarnations over the decades. From Micheal Keaton to Christian Bale to Robert Pattinson, each version takes things in a drastically different direction.
What audiences haven’t gotten, however, is a truly grizzled and bitter Bruce Wayne. And if things had gone as planned, silver screen icon Clint Eastwood would have been Batman. While appearing on Kevin Smith’s “Fatman on Batman” podcast (via Collider), “Batman Beyond” co-creator Paul Dini revealed that Eastwood was going to be approached for the role. A veteran of the big screen, Eastwood is a living legend who rose to prominence as the Man With No Name in the iconic Dollars Trilogy. Eastwood has since populated a number of memorable roles and is now one of Hollywood’s most notable directors, having helmed “Gran Torino,” “American Sniper,” and the genre-defining Western, “Unforgiven.”
Approaching Eastwood to star as Bruce Wayne for a “Batman Beyond” picture makes sense, considering that version of the character is jaded, exhausted, and scowling 90% of the time. Warner Bros. has always tried its darndest to make a cinematic adaptation of the “Batman Beyond” series, but the stars have never aligned.
Paul Dini describes his scrapped Batman Beyond film
When it comes to Batman’s mythos in animation, it’s hard to deny how monumental “Batman Beyond” was. The series, which Paul Dini co-created alongside Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett, first debuted in 1999 and ran for three seasons. A sequel to “Batman: The Animated Series” and “The New Batman Adventures,” “Batman Beyond” took the character of Bruce Wayne in a radically different and nuanced direction. In the futuristic series, Bruce Wayne (voiced by Kevin Conroy) is far too old to be doing his Caped Crusader shenanigans.
Retired and detesting his old man shtick, the grizzled Wayne recruits the young but erratic Terry McGinnis to take on the role of Gotham’s Batman. Armed with a futuristic suit and the help of Wayne’s wisdom, McGinnis becomes a force to be reckoned with, cleaning up Neo-Gotham’s streets with precision. It’s a fascinating take on the Dark Knight’s legacy and one of the defining appearances Batman has had on the small screen.
Unfortunately, “Batman Beyond” was never able to make the jump onto the big screen. In his chat with Kevin Smith, Dini discussed that he and Alan Burnett were brought on board by Warner Bros. to pen a live-action adaptation. It was supposed to have been directed by Boaz Yakin, best known for spearheading the Denzel Washington-led sports drama “Remember the Titans.” And from what Dini had to say about the shelved picture, it would have been an authentic adaptation of the series. “There was a little bit of ‘The Dark Knight,’ there was a little bit of contemporary comics, and there was Terry McGinnis and the suit and everything,” he shared.
Clint Eastwood has no interest in superheroes
It should be noted that Clint Eastwood was never approached for the role of Bruce Wayne. Rather, Dini suggests that Warner Bros. was eyeing the “Dirty Harry” actor for the gig, and it makes sense that the multi-hyphenate talent was at the top of the studio’s list. If you want an actor to play a graying, veteran Bruce Wayne with a chip on his shoulder, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better thespian than Eastwood. Of course, that “Batman Beyond” film never manifested, and subsequent attempts to bring the animated series to the big screen have failed.
But even if that iteration of the picture did see the light of day, we’re not sure if Eastwood would have taken the role. In a chat with MTV in 2010, Eastwood revealed that he rejected the role of Superman in 1978. “I was like, ‘Superman? Nah, nah, that’s not for me.’ Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It’s for somebody, but not me,” he said, recounting how he was approached by then Warner Bros. boss Frank Wells for the gig. However, the actor added he was interested in pursuing “grounded” characters who do “super things or more-than-human things,” like Dirty Harry. Well, Batman is pretty grounded, but “Batman Beyond” leans heavily into futuristic sci-fi aspects.
Ultimately, the property never made it to the big screen. A planned “Batman Beyond” movie starring Michael Keaton was scrapped once James Gunn and Peter Safran took their gigs as co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC Studios.