Christian Bale is willing to play Batman again, but with one restriction

For many Batman devotees, Christian Bale’s portrayal of the venerable DC character is the only acceptable one. The Christoper Nolan-directed ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’ of highly praised and box office successes featured the English actor as the character.

In 2005’s ‘Batman Begins,’ which also functioned as his origin narrative, the actor made his acting debut in the part. He then played the character again in the films “The Dark Knight” (2008) and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012).

Bale, who will be back in comic book movies with ‘Thor: Love and Thunder,’ has suggested he would be open to playing Batman again. But there’s a problem. He won’t do it unless Nolan also agrees to be his director.

While speaking to Comicbook.com, he said, ‘For me, that would be a matter of Chris Nolan, if he ever decided to do it again and if he chose to come my way again, then yeah, I would consider it because that was always our pact between each other is we would just stick to it. We said we would only ever make three. And then I said to myself, and I’d only ever make it with Chris.’

This might be challenging, if not impossible, given that Nolan’s long-standing relationship with Warner Bros, the production company in charge of the ‘Batman’ franchise and every other DC property, was strained following the contentious release date controversy surrounding the science-fiction action film ‘Tenet’ in 2020. Since then, Nolan has relocated to Universal and is helming the studio’s multi-starrer ‘Oppenheimer.’

In the meantime, there are already two Batman movies in the DC movie universe. A third Batman movie on the big screen might be too many. The Flash will feature Ben Affleck in the same position the following year. The Batman, a movie starring Robert Pattinson and directed by Matt Reeves, was also released this year. The Battinson film takes place in a separate universe from everything else in the DC cinematic universe.

Bale’s return to comic-book cinema with ‘Love and Thunder’ is villainous this time. He will play Gorr the God Butcher opposite Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Natalie Portman’s Mighty Thor in Taika Waititi film. The movie releases on July 7 in India.