10 Actors Almost Cast As Batman (Who Would Have Sucked Way More Than Affleck)

5. Joshua Jackson

Along with Gyllenhaal, and perhaps considered for the same reasons as the former Donnie Darko lead, Joshua Jackson was considered when Chris Nolan came on board. Thankfully, it never got past talking.

Why It Would Have Sucked

Quite why Jackson was even lightly considered for the role remains baffling. He played the charismatic, slightly wounded best friend type in Dawson's Creek, and had hopped around various similar film projects after that ended, like Cruel Intentions, The Skulls and Urban Legend. None were of the calibre necessary to convince that Jackson was anything but a reasonably diverting side-character actor, charming in a boyish way, and perhaps a reasonable choice for Robin, if Nolan had wanted to go in the same tonal direction as Joel Schumacher.

But Batman he is not. And Bruce Wayne he definitely isn't. Casting Batman isn't just about casting the best actor (which Jackson isn't), it's about casting the right person - someone with that intangible edginess that suits the character, and one who exudes the necessary confidence and on screen power to captivate as both Batman and Wayne, while simultaneously being convincing as a social charlatan hidden in plain sight. None of this sounds like Jackson.

Had this rather unwanted Dawson's Creek reunion actually happened, at least Katie Holmes wouldn't have been quite so obvious as the worst casting choice in any Nolan film.