Before playing Joker, Joaquin Phoenix was almost cast as Batman

Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky has said that when he wanted to re-invent Batman back in the nineties, he suggested Joaquin Phoenix for the lead role.

The Joker star was his first choice for his new Batman film after George Clooney's 1997 outing as the caped crusader in Batman & Robin flopped. However, Aronofsky's vision of Batman was not realised because the project never went into production.

"The studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr and I wanted Joaquin Phoenix. It was a different time. The Batman I wrote was definitely a way different type of take than they ended up making," Aronofsky said.

He added, "The Batman that was out before me was Batman & Robin, the famous one with the nipples on the Batsuit, so I was really trying to undermine that and reinvent it. That's where my head went."

Nearly a decade later after Batman & Robin, Christopher Nolan revived the caped crusader with Batman Begins in 2005, the first of his genre-bending Dark Knight series of blockbusters. Christian Bale essayed Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne in Nolan's trilogy.