10 Actors Almost Cast As Batman (Who Would Have Sucked Way More Than Affleck)

10. Heath Ledger

Before he was cast as The Joker (with hysterical fan outrage, it's worth adding), the Aussie rising star was under consideration for the lead in Chris Nolan's reboot: according to the director himself, the pair met to discuss the possibility, but Ledger was less than enthused by the project:

"He was quite gracious about it, but he said, 'I would never take a part in a super hero film."

Why It Would Have Sucked

For one reason and one reason only: the casting would have ensured that we didn't get to see Ledger's Joker, and that would have been the worst casting crime in the history of Batman movies, which is both ironic and deeply pertinent here, given the initial reaction to his casting before The Dark Knight.

Remember how outraged you were when you first heard the news? And remember how it all turned out? Yeah, that.

Ledger may have been a good Batman - his range was certainly proven in The Dark Knight - but he was undoubtedly a better Joker than anything he could have achieved on the other side of the good/bad divide, and we have to be thankful that he turned down Nolan's initial suggestion outright.

Anyway, the success of Batman Begins was chiefly responsible for Ledger's acceptance of the offer to be in The Dark Knight - and even before Jonathan Nolan had even written the script, according to Chris Nolan, who said Ledger acknowledged the success of what Nolan had tried to do with Batman Begins.