The Riddler Was Supposed to be in The Dark Knight Rises and Leonardo DiCaprio Was to Play Him, Per Report

In the July issue of Empire magazine, screenwriter David Goyer is interviewed and talks about The Dark Knight Rises and who the studio wanted as the villain instead of Bane.

"[I]t’s gonna be The Riddler, and we want it to be Leonardo DiCaprio…" Goyer told the magazine, which is reported via Batman-New.com who got a hold of a copy of the new issue early.

This makes sense since DiCaprio has worked with director Christopher Nolan in the past (Inception) and he has done several films for Warner Bros. as well. Unfortunately, no further details were given about this information.

As a form of pure speculation you'd have to think the studio wanted DiCaprio for one reason and one reason alone and this was to attach a huge name to The Dark Knight Rises in order to have it compete with its predecessor (The Dark Knight) since the previous film made a ton of box office cash.

What is interesting about this is that Nolan decided to stick with Bane and the studio executives agreed to it, which really shows how much power Nolan has with Warner Bros.