The Dark Knight Rises could have featured The Riddler as its main villain, but Christopher Nolan chose to go another direction. Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy remains an impressive movie-making feat, acclaimed by critics and beloved by fans. Even almost a decade after the last entry in the trilogy, the influence of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises can be seen in not just modern superhero movies, but modern movies in general. And there will no doubt be hints of Nolan's influence in Matt Reeves' upcoming reboot The Batman.

The trilogy's lasting appeal stems from the villains. From Liam Neeson's calmly competent take on the duplicitous Ra's al Ghul to Heath Ledger's chilling, Oscar-winning Joker, the Dark Knight trilogy consistently delivered memorable cinematic interpretations of classic Batman rogues. The Dark Knight Rises was no exception, introducing Tom Hardy's Bane whose mask and muffled orations themselves became a small cultural phenomenon.

Related: Every Batman Villain Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy Set Up

But had Warner Bros. convinced Christopher Nolan to use The Riddler as the main antagonist in The Dark Knight Rises, Hardy's notable performance might never have happened. The studio was reportedly eager to convince the Dunkirk director to include The Riddler as the big bad in his final Batman movie with Leonardo DiCaprio said to be in contention for the role. The Dark Knight Rises' co-writer David S. Goyer reportedly said he overheard WB bosses talking about their desire for The Riddler to be the villain in the film and that DiCaprio was their first choice.

Leonardo DiCaprio in Inception

Obviously, none of this came to fruition, but details about how or why Nolan overlooked Warner Bros' desires remain sketchy at best. In a 2012 interview, the director, in characteristically terse terms, said about the then-upcoming movie and its central villain: “It won't be the Riddler.” He went on to explain that he would be using many of the characters from previous instalments in the franchise but stopped short of giving any definitive reason as to why Edward Nygma - as The Riddler is known in the comic books - had been overlooked.

The story of how The Dark Knight Rises came to be, following The Dark Knight's success, gives some clues as to why Nolan chose to steer clear of The Riddler. The director was interested in the prospect of the League of Shadows from Batman Begins returning and envisioned Bane as a unique villain for one main reason: he would be the first of the Nolan villains that represented a genuine physical threat to Batman. Speaking to THR, Nolan revealed how, once he had decided on the idea of introducing a physically imposing villain, he went through the Batman comic books until deciding on Bane as the best foe to embody his vision.

After establishing his plan for the third and final instalment in the Dark Knight trilogy, Nolan set out to make his version of a war epic, focusing on societal decay and corruption along the way - an approach that leaves little room for a quizzical trickster villain. Interestingly, Goyer has previously recalled how he was the one to introduce the idea of Bane as a potential villain for The Dark Knight Rises, so it seems the genesis of the film's plot remains somewhat murky. Still, at no point in Nolan's recollection of how the film came to be does he mention Leonardo DiCaprio or The Riddler, which would make sense if a theory about The Riddler already appearing in The Dark Knight is correct.

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Either way, if Goyer was right in his initial claim about the Warner Bros executives, then it seems the whole Riddler idea never progressed beyond being a studio ambition. DiCaprio, who reportedly turned down the role of Robin in the 90s and had just starred in Nolan's Inception prior to The Dark Knight Rises' release, wouldn't have been an outlandish choice for the movie's villain, but clearly Nolan was eager to go in another direction. Short of a definitive statement from the director himself, it seems fair to assume the character of The Riddler never really fit the concept of what The Dark Knight Rises was intended to be.

More: Every Batman Villain Rumored To Appear In Dark Knight Rises (That Didn't)

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