Henry Cavill may have only been 27 when he was announced as Warner Bros.’ new Superman in January 2011, but he’d already gathered something of an unwanted reputation for being perhaps the unluckiest actor in the business.
He was on the shortlist of eight individuals who auditioned to play Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins prior to Christian Bale’s casting, he made it to the final two when James Bond was being rebooted in Casino Royale before the studio opted for Daniel Craig after deeming the 22 year-old Cavill a little too young, and seven years before he landed the title role in Man of Steel he screen tested in costume for J.J. Abrams’ abandoned Superman: Flyby.
If that wasn’t enough, he also missed out on playing Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, turned down a role in Zack Snyder’s 300 because he was holding out hope he’d be the next 007 and was author Stephenie Meyer’s first choice to play Edward Cullen in the multi-billion dollar Twilight franchise.
That’s an incredible streak of misfortune so early in a career, but things might come full circle eventually should Cavill inherit the role of Bond, having been one of the favorites to succeed the current incumbent for years. However, insider Daniel Richtman is reporting that The Witcher star could get another bite at a very different apple as well after claiming he wants to play an alternate version of Batman from a different reality in a future DC project.
Ignoring the fact that we’ve already got three Dark Knights on the way to the big screen with Robert Pattinson, Ben Affleck and hopefully Michael Keaton suiting up next year, and even without mentioning Richtman having linked Cavill with a sequel to The Man from U.N.C.L.E., an unnamed Disney prince, a mystery superhero, a gig in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, miscellaneous video game adaptations, a collaboration with Robert Downey Jr., multiple Sherlock Holmes projects for Netflix and an unnamed Warner Bros. franchise in the space of the last month alone, we’d be very surprised if the DCEU’s multiverse came anywhere close to going so meta.
