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Could the Beast have protected Gotham? During a recent interview, X-Men star Nicholas Hoult reflected on losing out on the leading role in The Batman to Robert Pattinson.

Despite some initial apprehension when he was first cast, fans grew to love Pattinson’s take on the Dark Knight, with The Batman rocketing it through the charts and landing multiple spin-offs along with a sequel helmed by Matt Reeves. In a world not too different from this one, Reeves could have chosen Nichilas Hoult to be the one to don the cape and cowl. In a recent interview, Hoult reflected on this alternate path when asked about if he would have wanted to land the role:

“Of course,” Hoult told news/nicholas-hoult-lost-batman-robert-pattinson-painful-1235590241/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Variety. “I’m sure if you ask most people, they’ll tell you they’d want to portray that role. I think Matt Reeves’ ideas were fantastic and he made a brilliant movie. And I also think that Rob [Pattinson] did an amazing job with the character, and I loved seeing him in it. So I don’t think I would have done as good a job as him ultimately. I don’t think I could have fit as well into the world that Matt created as Rob did.”

Playing Bruce Wayne wasn’t the only role Nicholas Hoult lost out on during that time. The actor has previously revealed that he missed out on roles in The Batman, Top Gun: Maverick, and Mission: Impossible 7 all in a row. Despite the onslaught of failed auditions, Hoult thinks that the casting directors always made the right choice:

“When they tell you for the first time that it’s not you, it’s painful, but then you have to accept it as normality,” He continued. “I think that’s probably a strength of mine as an actor as well. I can accept that they didn’t cast me pretty well and when I see the chosen actor doing a great job, and I enjoy it, and it’s good, I’m like, ‘oh yeah, they made the right choice. They knew what they were doing.’ So it’s not like I’m sitting there like, ‘Oh, I’m not going to watch it now.’ It’s a good movie and Rob is brilliant in it.”

Nicholas Hoult’s career hasn’t slowed down, even with all of these rejections. He recently starred in the vampire comedy Renfield, which also features Nicolas Cage. Late last year, Hoult also starred in the critically-acclaimed horror film The Menu, which focused around the terrors of high society dining.

The future of the Batman series

The first movie ended with Batman apprehending the Riddler, who has flooded Gotham City, though details about Part II are currently scarce. Matt Reves is co-writing the script of the sequel with Mattson Tomlin.

The heads of DC Studios recently revealed that The Batman: Part II is set to hit theaters on October 2025. The first movie earned $770.8 million at the worldwide box office, a figure that makes it the seventh highest-grossing movie of 2022.

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