Christian Bale in Batman Begins

It’s been 20 years since we were introduced to Christopher Nolan’s dark and gritty Batman trilogy.

Leading star Christian Bale brought a whole new approach to the iconic superhero in 2005’s Batman Begins, which went on to be a huge critical and commercial success, kicking off an Oscar-winning franchise that would make its way into plenty of cinephiles’ top 10 lists.

Also starring Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes and Gary Oldman, Batman Begins brought a rough edge to the Dark Knight’s origin story as he vowed to clean up crime in Gotham City.

As fans will no doubt be returning to the movie to mark the anniversary, here are 11 behind-the-scenes secrets you might not have known about how the film was made…

Before Christian Bale was cast, there were a few other actors in consideration to play Batman

It’s hard to imagine anyone else capturing the fierce intensity of Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy quite like Christian Bale, but there were a few other big names up for the role.

Those included Jake Gyllenhaal (sister of Maggie, who would later take over the role of Rachel Dawes from Katie Holmes), Eion Bailey, Heath Ledger (who, of course, went on to play The Joker in The Dark Knight) and Cillian Murphy, who eventually landed the role of Scarecrow instead.

Christopher Nolan staple Cillian Murphy was in the running to play Batman before he was cast as Scarecrow

Another A-lister was also nearly cast as Scarecrow before the role went to Cillian Murphy

Before the role went to Cillian, director Christopher Nolan was drawn to another big name who he would go on to work with in Oppenheimer: Robert Downey Jr.

“I 100% knew you weren’t the guy. In my head, that was already cast,” the director admitted to the Iron Man actor in a joint interview with The New York Times in 2024.

However, despite being a “huge admirer” of the Marvel star’s work, Nolan also confessed to being “a little afraid” of him, claiming: “I had heard all kinds of stories about how you were crazy. It was only a few years after the last of those stories that had come out about you.”

From 1996 to the early 2000s, Robert had been arrested several times for drug-related issues, and went on to spend 15 months in prison before turning his life........

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