Christopher Nolan Discouraged David S. Goyer from Participating in Ben Affleck’s Batman, Saying it Would Get Confusing

Before the age of Marvel Studios’ shared universe, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer shook up the comic book movie world with Batman Begins. The movie celebrates its 20th Anniversary this year and, while commonplace now, Batman Begins had a significant impact as one of the most notable franchise reboots, as it rebounded the character from Joel Schumacher’s infamous Batman & Robin. Nolan only had sights on a trilogy arc, but studios think bigger nowadays, so when it came time to reboot the character again, it would set up for much more stories in the DCEU, which stemmed from Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel.

Variety reports on David S. Goyer’s recent appearance on The Happy Sad Confused podcast, where the writer talks about working with Christopher Nolan on the Dark Knight franchise. When it came time to cross over into the DCEU, Goyer would continue writing for the nocturnal Gothamite in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. However, Goyer reveals that Nolan thought it’d be a bad idea for him to carry over into the new continuity.

via: Variety

“They were not happy about that,” Goyer said about only featuring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne for the first hour of the movie. “No disrespect to the actors who played Bruce Wayne prior to this, and as moviegoers we were always twiddling our thumbs waiting for the character to get into costume and for the movie to begin. But why is that?”

“We knew fairly early on that we needed to have the audience fall in love with Bruce Wayne,” Goyer said. “We had to have an amazing action sequence that involved Bruce Wayne and not Batman. That’s how we came up with that massive escape from the temple and him sliding down the ice.”

To help ease the studio’s concerns over hiding Batman for a large chunk of “Batman Begins,” Goyer put together a presentation for executives in which he took four other superhero movies, including Richard Donner’s “Superman,” and “we clocked the minute into the film the character had put on the costume… We weren’t that much farther than them!”

Goyer and Nolan continued their superhero collaboration after the “Dark Knight” trilogy wrapped by working with Zack Snyder on “Man of Steel,” which Goyer wrote from a story he devised with Nolan. It was the start of Snyder’s DC Universe, which would continue with “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” But, according to Goyer, Nolan told him to avoid sticking with DC and launching another Batman via Ben Affleck.

“I remember Chris advising me not to work on the Affleck Batman, just because it’s confusing,” Goyer said. “We did one and just stick with that.”

Goyer clearly did not heed Nolan’s advice, and he may not again when it comes to Blade. Goyer wrote all three movies in Wesley Snipes’ original “Blade” trilogy and even stepped in to direct 2004’s “Blade: Trinity.” Goyer told ScreenRant earlier this year he’d be interested in coming on board to help Marvel’s long-delayed “Blade” reboot with Mahershala Ali.

“I would. I’ve always loved the character and I love him,” Goyer said when asked if he would write Marvel’s “Blade” reboot for the MCU. “I’ve been sitting on the sidelines wondering, ‘What in the world is going on? Why is it taking so long?’ Because I’m a huge Marvel fan myself, and I’ve just been totally puzzled.”

Watch Goyer’s full interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast in the video below.