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Not only is Batman Begins lauded as one of the greatest Batman films ever made, some argue that it’s among the best comic book movies ever made period. However, when the 2005 Chris Nolan film was in production, his screenwriter wasn’t convinced that the movie would actually get made.

“Eight years prior had been the last Batman film, Batman and Robin, which was fairly or not , the most maligned of those four films,” Batman Begins screenwriter David Goyer says during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast. “Even when Tim Burton’s Batman came out, that was darker and more serious than people had expected. But then the movies progressively got closer and closer to the Adam West version, which was the public’s general perception of what Batman was. And in the intervening years, it just so happened that I happened to be personal friends with a lot of the people who had attempted to make the next Batman movie.”

Many of Goyer’s friends had been attached to Batman projects that never saw the light of day.

“I was friends with Mark Protosevich, who had written a fifth Batman movie that was supposed to be the next Schumacher film, and we had talked about that. And I was friends with Boaz Yakin, who had written a Batman Beyond script. And I was friends with Andrew Kevin Walker, who had written a Batman Superman script. And so, I was kind of sitting on the sidelines every once in a while, having meals with these guys hearing about these next Batman movies that had all stalled. And I think at one point there was even an attempt to do an R-rated Aronofsky Year One. And I was just sitting here in kind of the sidelines watching all these Batman movies get developed and then fall into development hell.”

And so, when Chris Nolan approached Goyer to write a new Batman movie, the writer had little reason to believe this project would be any different. “I heard that Chris might be developing a new Batman, and I remember telling my agent, ‘Well, it’s never going to get made.’ None of those guys could get it made, these other filmmakers, and it’s just sort of mired in all this stuff.”

“When Chris first approached me, I said I was too busy, and secretly, I didn’t think it would get off the ground.” Although Goyer turned down the offer, he spoke with Nolan at length about what the movie would need to work. Nolan continued his search for a writer, but nobody was exciting him the way Goyer had.

“Three or four weeks later, Chris talked to some other people and he called back and he said, ‘I’ve talked to some other people and I really feel like it should be you working with me on this.’ And I was really flattered, and we ended up working on it together.”

To Goyer’s delighted surprise, WB was taking the movie seriously, and Batman Begins went into production. “The thing that I hadn’t counted on was the pressure within Warner Brothers to get a new one going finally.”

He is vengeance, he is the night, he is... one of Popverse's favorite subjects. Learn how to do a Dark Knight movie marathon right with our Batman movie guide, and for the true World's Greatest Detectives out there, dive deep into the heart of Gotham City by getting to know Batman with Popverse.