So, before Warner Bros. handed the Batman franchise over to Christopher Nolan, they almost let Darren Aronofsky do a Bat-flick even though he had only done one movie at that point, and he told them he wanted to cast Clint Eastwood as Batman. Yes, Clint Eastwood. That actually sounds kind of awesome, but of course it never happened. Probably because Eastwood was all “Bat-what? F–k off kid. I’ve done over 50 films and I’ve never been any Bat-whatever.”
After the Eastwood thing fell through, Aronofsky started working on an adaptation of Batman: Year One with Frank Miller himself. Of course Frank Miller was well into his transformation into cranky lunatic Frank Miller by this point, so the story he and Aronofsky came up with sounds suitably wacky — after Bruce’s parents are killed he’s found in the gutter by a mechanic named “Big Al” who raises him. Apparently nobody ever bothers to look for the heir to the Wayne family fortune, and Bruce himself is never clued into the fact he has billions of dollars waiting for him. Always good to start a story on a nice gaping plot hole.
So anyways, this version of Batman wouldn’t have any money for fancy gadgets, so he just blacks out the windows of a Lincoln Continental and drives around the inner city beating the crap out of guys. Which again, actually sounds kind of awesome, but then again — “Big Al”. Yeesh.
Eventually Warner Bros. decided to pass on Aronofsky’s ideas, because let’s be real here, kids don’t want to buy toy Lincoln Continentals. Still, this makes me wish I could go back in time and somehow make a Dark Knight Returns movie starring Unforgiven-era Clint Eastwood happen.
via Blastr