The Batman: Part II: The Role That Nobody Wants! Why?
It’s been an interesting few months for fans of Matt Reeves’ Batman franchise. We’ve gotten several casting updates regarding the film but one role is struggling to find an actor to play it. Why is that? Let’s talk about it!
What’s Going On? What Role?: Back in January it was reported by the major trades that Sebastian Stan is joining the film as Harvey Dent. Based on rumors and reports from Jeff Sneider, it seems like Matt Reeves is adapting The Long Halloween for The Batman: Part II. In that story, it’s very Harvey Dent focused with his wife and dad playing major roles. Scarlett Johansson is very likely playing Harvey Dent’s wife, she’s the person responsible for turning Harvey Dent into Two-Face. The role that Matt Reeves seems to have issues casting is Harvey Dent’s father, Christopher Dent. At one point, Brad Pitt was offered the role but turned it down. Since then, Stellen Skarsgård, Daniel Craig, Liam Neeson, Viggo Mortensen, and Robert DeNiro were all offered the role and turned it down. It’s a bit interesting that for whatever reason people are turning this role down. It’s very interesting to me for a couple of different reasons.
My Thoughts
I have faith in Matt Reeves and The Batman: Part II. If you don’t know, The Batman is my favorite movie of the decade. I’ve been anticipating the sequel ever since it came out and the fact that we’re getting casting and filming is starting soon is making me very excited. With Johansson and Stan joining the cast it gave me more things to be positive about with major cast members joining the film.
What do I think about all of the back and forth about actors being offered a role but end up turning it down? I’ll say this, this makes me very curious about this movie and this role in particular. Because if we got through all of the actors that were offered this role, Brad Pitt, Stellen Skarsgård, Daniel Craig, Liam Neeson, Viggo Mortensen, and Robert DeNiro, all of those actors are very different from each other. I don’t know what this character is going to be because Brad Pitt characters are very different from Robert DeNiro characters. Beyond that, there’s a massive age gap between the oldest of these actors and the youngest of these actors. Craig is the youngest of these actors being 58 years old, DeNiro is the oldest at 82. That’s a 24 year old gap between those two actors. It’s very weird that the casting call for this movie is almost 30 years. I’m just curious as to which actor they’re going to get. I think all of these people are great actors so if any one of them took the role, that’s a win for me. But when predicting who they are going to get next, it’s not easy because I don’t know what this character is.
Beyond that, I’ve seen some people say that they’re worried about this role because it’s not attracting these big name actors. That doesn’t concern me for a number of reasons.
First up, from what I’ve heard Christopher Dent is a very dark character. He’s an abusive person that abused Harvey as a child. Even as an adult he continues to be abusive and what not. Right there, playing a very dark character isn’t always a great sell of an actor. This is a very weird comparison but famously Will Smith turned down Django Unchained. The reason for that is because he didn’t want to carry the weight of the character after the film came out. I feel like you can apply some of that logic to this role if Matt Reeves is making it as dark as the comics make him.
Second, three of these actors have already been in a comic book movie. Neeson was in Batman Begins over 20 years ago, Skarsgård was in the MCU, and DeNiro was in Joker. Why would half of those actors do another comic book movie? Those three Hollywood icons that have been in the industry for decades. Who have already done big comic book movies. Especially with Skarsgård and DeNiro, those aren’t actors that you’d normally see in big budget films like comic book movies. Craig hasn’t been in a comic book movie. But he was almost in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Pitt had a two-second cameo in Deadpool 2, which I don’t think fully counts as being in a comic book movie. That means that Mortensen is the only actor that hasn’t come close or has made it to being in a comic book movie. Why would any of those actors want to be in their first comic book or in another comic book movie after they already played the game? That right there I think is a big reason as to why these actors turned the role down.
Third and final reason, there’s scheduling conflicts. Daniel Craig reportedly turned down the role because he can’t make it work in his schedule. He’s currently filming Damien Chazelle’s latest film with Cillian Murphy and several other familiar actors. I believe some of the other actors also had scheduling conflicts that couldn’t allow them to do the movie. If an actor has scheduling conflicts and is filming something else or is about to film something else that’s a totally reasonable and common excuse to turn a movie down. That doesn’t mean that they thought the script was bad, it means that they already signed on to do something else. There’s plenty of examples in Hollywood of actors turning down great movies due to them being signed onto something else.
Final Thoughts: I’m not concerned about The Batman: Part II or the role of Christopher Dent really at all. I have faith that whatever Matt Reeves is cooking with this film is going to be great. The fact that Reeves and the producers are attracting a number of top level actors makes me excited. It also makes me curious as to what this movie and character is going to be.
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