2002, crime hits Gotham on a massive scale. Corruption and death plague the streets and over on the lower east side, all the animals come out at night. Pimps, prostitutes, bagmen, three-time felons, dope dealers, rapists, junkies, gangsters, and cop killers. Aronofsky pitched this originally in the early 2000s after Requiem as The French Connection meets Batman, with Jim Gordon compared to Serpico or Dirty Harry and Batman compared to that of Travis Bickle or Paul Kersey. There were rumors of Bale coming on for the project, but this is untrue, the real castings were either Freddie Prinze Jr or Joaquin Phoenix.
