The discourse surrounding the multitude of actors to have portrayed the caped crusader over the years has been pretty heated and divisive, from the weird uproar over Ben Affleck being tapped for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to the fond nostalgia some folks have for the pronounced nipples on George Clooney's bat-suit.
Perhaps the most non-controversial take, however, is that Christian Bale in Christopher Nolan's gritty Dark Knight trilogy was one of the best and there's a possibility we might one day see the actor reprise the role.
Currently on a press tour for Thor: Love and Thunder, Bale talked to Screen Rant about whether or not he'd consider playing Batman again. "No one’s ever mentioned it to me. No one’s brought it up,” the actor told the publication. “Occasionally people say to me, ‘Oh, I hear you were approached and offered all this.’ And I’m like, ‘That’s news to me. No one’s ever said that.’”
That being said, Bale is definitely open to the idea, but if he were it would be under one very specific condition. “I had a pact with Chris Nolan,” the actor explained. “We said, ‘Hey, look. Let’s make three films, if we’re lucky enough to get to do that. And then let’s walk away. Let’s not linger too long.’ In my mind, it would be something if Chris Nolan ever said to himself, ‘You know what, I’ve got another story to tell.’ And if he wished to tell that story with me, I’d be in.”
This echoes similar sentiments Bale previously made to ComicBook, “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.”
Given how outrageously successful the original trilogy was, Nolan and Bale left the Dark Knight trilogy off on a pretty definitive ending, but there's always a chance.
However, one of the major roadblocks in the way is that Nolan and Warner Brothers aren't on the best of terms at the moment after the whole Tenet debacle. Since Bale, the studio has also gone on to put out other installments in the Batman franchise such as the aforementioned Ben Affleck film and, most recently, Robert Pattinson's portrayal. Only time will tell.
Photo via Getty/Jon Kopaloff