David S. Goyer, the writer of Batman Beginsand one of the masterminds behind Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, has confirmed that the antagonist to Gotham City’s iconic superhero wasn’t always meant to be played by Liam Neeson. As it turns out, the character of Ra’s al Ghul, a.k.a. Henri Ducard, the League of Shadows leader who trains Bruce Wayne to become a vigilante, was written with someone else in mind. A certain Academy Award nominee whom audiences might know as one of the villains in the MCU.
As Batman Begins turns 20 years old, Goyer appeared on the podcast hosted by Josh Horowitz, Happy Sad Confused. Although he spent the early part of his career writing horror movies like Demonic Toys and Arcade, Goyer then turned to films of a higher profile. In 1998, he wrote Blade and consolidated his position as a superhero visionary. Eventually, he stayed within the DC Studios system and was involved in writing the script for films like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
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However, Batman Begins remains one of his more prominent projects. In the podcast, he calls the film one of the best things he has ever made. Naturally, he has several anecdotes about making the Christopher Nolan film that began the Batman trilogy, which some fans still regard as some of the best superhero films ever made. Among the many tidbits he shared, Goyer revealed that Liam Neeson wasn’t always the first choice to play the film’s antagonist. Instead, Nolan thought of The Brutalist and Iron Man 3 star Guy Pearce for the role, offering someone who would have been more of a peer to Bruce Wayne, played by Christian Bale:
“It was Guy and Liam. I think Chris [Nolan] had sort of narrowed it down to those two, and I remember him calling me and us having a long conversation about which one. Chris had his own reasons. But I just remember thinking that Liam made a bit more sense because he was older, and I just thought instead of a fraternal [story], we were telling a story about Bruce growing up in the shadow of his father. So, it just made more sense to me.”
‘Batman Begins’ Turns 20: Is It One of the Finest Superhero Films Ever Made?
Warner Bros. Pictures
Batman Begins was a game-changer for the superhero genre. The tone, timeliness, and grounded nature of its more serious plot made it stand out from other films in the genre. While there had been many successes before it, they were often more fantastical in their approach. Suddenly, Warner Bros. was betting on a high-budget superhero film for adults, one in which the villains were much more sinister and could do so much more than just spew out expository dialogue with evil cackles at the end.
Despite being overshadowed by its sequel, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins is one of the best superhero films ever made. It was groundbreaking with its presentation of a morally complex hero in the “real world.” Before Nolan’s presentation of Batman, audiences had been presented with both Tim Burton’s Gothic take followed by Joel Schumacher’s return to the more campy version of The Caped Crusader as presented by Adam West in the 1960s. But after Batman Begins, audiences were enamored with the high stakes and a far more compelling and multilayered hero, with Goyer and Nolan influencing the superhero genre for years to come.
Source: Happy Sad Confused
Release Date
June 15, 2005
Runtime
140 minutes
Producers
Benjamin Melniker, Charles Roven, Emma Thomas, Larry Franco, Lorne Orleans
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