10 Actors Who Confirmed They Were Almost Batman

6. Freddie Prinze Jr - Batman: Year One

Freddie Prinze Jr Batman The Dark Knight
Miramax

It's a crazy thought, but in an alternate reality, the guy who played Fred in those live-action Scooby-Doo movies could've been Aronofsky's Batman.

In a recent chat with Empire, Aronofsky opened up about his failed Batman movie, revealing that it started to become clear that he and Warner Bros. were on totally different pages once the two parties started discussing casting:

“The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix. I remember thinking, 'Uh oh, we're making two different films here.' That's a true story. It was a different time. The Batman I wrote was definitely a way different type of take than they ended up making.”

Now, no disrespect to Freddie Prinze Jr - the dude is awesome as Kanan Jarrus in Star Wars Rebels - but comparing him to Joaquin Phoenix is like comparing Sunday league football to the Premiership. No wonder Year One fell apart.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.