Blue Beetle Director Pitched Bane Origin Movie
Angel Manuel Soto had a different idea for his DC Universe debut. The director of the upcoming Blue Beetle told Den of Geek that when Warner Bros. called him about a DC project, he didn’t realize they already had one in mind and pitched them several ideas. One of those was a Bane origin movie. Solo said he wanted to tell Bane’s story because “I always thought that there was something interesting in exploring his reality and how a character like that comes to be.” The Batman villain, who was last portrayed in live-action by Tom Hardy in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (and before that by Jeep Swenson in Batman & Robin), is a somewhat more recent addition to Batman’s rogues gallery, having debuted in 1993 from writer Chuck Dixon (currently of the Rippaverse!) and artist Graham Nolan, but quickly became a fan favorite, particularly after “Knightfall,” the storyline in which he broke Batman’s back.
I agree with Soto to an extent; Bane does have a cool backstory, which can be found in the first volume of the “Knightfall” collected editions, if you’re interested. And his cinematic appearances have significantly altered his origin, so it would be fertile ground for a movie. But, as with most of these new supervillain solo films like Venom and Kraven The Hunter, I don’t think an entire movie needs to be devoted to it. You can tell Bane’s history sufficiently in a Batman movie, particularly if you keep him as the sole antagonist. Plenty of superhero films have accomplished this, like the Raimi Spider-Man movies or Avengers: Infinity War. And after Joker, it would feel derivative; that was a novelty of sorts (impending sequel notwithstanding), but making a cottage industry out of villain origin movies doesn’t sound workable. That being said, it would probably be a lot more interesting than Blue Beetle looks.
