Zack Snyder wanted to cast Christian Bale in Batman v Superman

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Don't get too over-excited. Zack Snyder's comments about casting Christian Bale in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice aren't in reference to the Dark Knight. Although, according to the director that's exactly what Warner Bros. was hoping for - Bale's return as Batman.

“This is a total and opposite reality from the Chris Nolan movies," he says, addressing the complex issue of multiple cinematic worlds. "It’s another universe, so we couldn’t hire Christian Bale if we wanted to, because he doesn’t exist in our world. Maybe we could hire him to play another part. We did talk about that briefly. I just wanted to hire Christian to play another part to make that obvious. Christian could play, like, Alfred with age makeup. No! Of course not. But you know what I mean."

"Even people at the studio would say, ‘Who are you getting from the other movies?’ And I was like, ‘Hey, come on guys, let’s all understand, it’s a different world.’ In the Batman universe that Chris Nolan created, Superman would have a hard time existing. That that’s why we did a reboot on the universe, so we could allow these characters to exist together. We needed to do that to have Batman exist in this world.”

It's interesting to hear Snyder talk about the reason behind rebooting the universe - the need to have Superman and Batman side by side. And he's got a point with Nolan's movies. In the grimy, real world of the Dark Knight trilogy it'd be tricky to throw in Clark Kent and Supes.

I could still see Bale alongside Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne's ex-SAS chief-of-staff though.

Directed by Zack Snyder and starring Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Gal Gadot, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Irons, Laurence Fishburne, and Amy Adams, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will arrive in UK and US cinemas on March 25, 2016.

Images: Warner Bros.

Gem Seddon
Gem Seddon

Gem Seddon is GamesRadar+'s west coast Entertainment News Reporter, working to keep all of you updated on all of the latest and greatest movies and shows on streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Outside of entertainment journalism, Gem can frequently be found writing about the alternative health and wellness industry, and obsessing over all things Aliens and Terminator on Twitter.