10 Directors Who Should Helm The Batman (If Affleck Quits)

8. Gore Verbinski

Gore Verbinski poses for photographers as he arrives at cinema for the French premiere of Lone Ranger, in Paris, France, Wednesday, July 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
Francois Mori/AP

Known For: Pirates Of The Caribbean 1-3, Rango, The Ring.

Gore Verbinski really doesn't get enough credit for the stellar job he did when helming the first Pirates Of The Caribbean movie. That film was based on nothing but a Disney theme park attraction, so he literally had to create an entire world from scratch and imbue it with life.

Needless to say, he was successful, and the Pirates franchise thrives to this day. It's this particular skill - the ability to capably create a fully-realised, lived-in world - that would come in handy were he chosen to direct The Batman.

The Gotham City we were given in Batman v Superman didn't really feel like a place - it just felt like a backdrop for things to happen on top of. In previous Batman adaptations, Gotham has felt like a character in its own right; the grimy, fog-covered Narrows in Batman Begins and Tim Burton's gothic, shadowy city from 1989's Batman, for example, and Verbinski could definitely bring a similarly well-rounded feel to his own version of Gotham.

Elsewhere, the man has substantial big-budget chops, and has proven he can work well with a studio on numerous blockbuster movies, and he's also versatile, as evidenced by the animated Rango and his upcoming mystery-thriller A Cure For Wellness.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!