The Dark Knight Rises: Nolan Brothers Initially Disagreed On The Villain Role

It has come to light that brothers and Batman writing and directing veterans Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan disagreed initially on who the main villain should be in The Dark Knight Rises.

Jonathan Nolan appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast and discussed how he initially wanted Riddler to be the main villain in The Dark Knight Rises, not Bane. Christopher Nolan and co-writer David S. Goyer wanted the villain to be Bane.

"We had these conversations. Bane came out of a conversation with David [Goyer] and Chris. I was unsure about that at the story stage, but I [didn't want it to be] back seat driving," Nolan said. "Chris understood that what we had done and what Heath [Ledger] had done with [Joker]--you didn't want to go anywhere near it."

Given this backdrop, Jonathan Nolan said he "started to play with the idea" of Riddler being the main villain in The Dark Knight Rises. However, he abandoned this idea because it felt "close enough to the space" of what Ledger did with Joker in The Dark Knight. Ledger died prior to the release of The Dark Knight and was awarded a posthumous Academy Award for his performance as Joker.

"You really needed to [change direction]," Nolan said, referring to the villain role for The Dark Knight Rises. Bane, who was played by Tom Hardy, was indeed a significant change from Ledger's Joker in terms of the type of villain he is. The tone of the entire third movie is different, too. Whereas The Dark Knight was an "urbane crime" movie, The Dark Knight Rises is a post-apocalyptic film, Noan said. "You sort of go: Batman always saves the day and the city survives. Why can't we destroy Gotham and see what happens afterwards?" he said.

Before this, Goyer said higher-ups at Warner Bros. were pushing for Leonardo DiCaprio to play the Riddler. But Goyer and the team stood their ground, saying, "That's not the way we work" as it relates to having a mandate come down from above like that to much such a drastic story decision.

Jonathan Nolan's latest project is the Fallout TV series for Prime Video, which is streaming now. His brother Christopher just won his first Oscars for Oppenheimer and is now plotting his next film.