Even though he directed two movies starring Batman, which ran for a combined total of almost eight hours if you consider the Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and HBO Max’s Justice League as the definitive versions of each film, Zack Snyder didn’t get much time to play with the Dark Knight’s deep bench of villains.
Joe Manganiello’s Deathsroke was consigned to a credits scene and an epilogue, while Jared Leto’s Joker was drafted in for the Snyder Cut reshoots largely so the director got his chance to shoot a scene featuring Ben Affleck’s Caped Crusader and his arch-nemesis as part of his contributions to the DCEU.
In an interview with BroBible, Snyder listed several names he was planning to incorporate into the mythology before his time as the architect of Warner Bros.’ shared universe was unceremoniously cut short.
“Obviously Catwoman is someone we talked about, and we had a Riddler concept that we talked about. Remember, the Riddler was kind of like the one who figured out the Anti-Life Equation on Earth in the spec scripts. Frankly, I’d love to see Penguin, I think will be cool. I think that’s a great character, and I’d love to see a version of Penguin that has an inherent camp to it. It’d be awesome to see how you could deconstruct it and make him into something crazy.”
Snyder admitted a while back that he envisioned his Watchmen and Sucker Punch cohort Carla Gugino as the Selina Kyle to Affleck’s Bruce Wayne, while the Riddler and Joker would have both factored into his Justice League sequels. Sadly, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see that happen, but at least Matt Reeves’ The Batman will scratch a couple of those itches in March 2022.
