Zack Snyder Says He Had Plans For Dave Bautista In The DCEU, But Not As Bane

Dave Bautista has been shouting from the rooftops recently that he’s called dibs on Bane the next time the iconic Batman villain makes his way to live-action. Indeed, the former professional wrestler admitted that he went into a meeting with Warner Bros. and told them straight up that he’s playing the role when it becomes available, even though he was there to talk about something else entirely.

It’s something DC Films supporters would be fully on board with as well, based on the various pieces of fan art we’ve seen depicting the Guardians of the Galaxy star as Bane, and while there were rumors floating around not too long ago that he was in talks with the studio to don the mask, the actor’s revelations have made it clear that things didn’t get much further than him putting his point across.

Bautista will next be seen in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, and he said a long time ago that the only reason he signed on to Netflix’s zombie action blockbuster was because he wanted to work with the 300 and Watchmen director. The feeling is clearly mutual, too, with Snyder revealing that he had plans in mind for the 52 year-old as part of his DCEU mythology, but he resigned himself to the fact that it’s Bane or bust for Bautista.

“In the meantime, we just really gotta figure out how to get Dave Bautista to be Bane. I feel like, I mean, I saw him talking about it, and I was like, ‘Okay, well clearly, you know, I had some other ideas about what Dave Bautista might do in the DC Universe’. But apparently it’s Bane, and we can talk about other ones, there’s other possibilities, but let’s just all accept the fact that he’s gotta be Bane, and there’s no two ways about it.”

HBO Max’s Justice League may have reignited the speculation surrounding a return to the fold for the DCEU’s original architect, but Snyder isn’t holding his breath over anything happening. He might not get to work with Bautista on a comic book epic, but Warner Bros. will be living in fear of what could happen to them if they cast anyone else as Bane in a future Batman-adjacent movie or TV series.