Batman might be coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (sort of), with Oscar-winner Christian Bale allegedly in talks to join Chris Hemsworth in Marvel’s Thor: Love and Thunder, according to an exclusive from Collider.
As of right now, neither the actor and his team nor Marvel have expressed any confirmation of this information, so it’s just a rumor as of yet. However, this news leaves me feeling both “meh” and “m’kay” at the same time.
Bale has done his time in nerd land as Batman in the Dark Knight trilogy, and whatever I may feel about those films subjectively, objectively, they are important comic book films that have set the tone for the past decade of the medium. Bringing him into the Marvel universe would be a huge thing, and also seeing him work with Taika Waititi and maybe getting to be a little bit more lighthearted would be amazing. All that, from a nerdy perspective, is pretty okay news.
However, this also represents another way in which Marvel’s expansion shrinks the pool of actors. When I watch a movie recently, I usually chuckle about how many of the actors have been in a Marvel or Disney film. Recently. Even Knives Out has two people who were cast in Endgame and the director of The Last Jedi helming it.
I don’t think there needs to be a hard split between “Disney” and “cinema”; I just feel we need a good place for discovering new talent. People want to grab onto the Disney and Marvel clout so bad, thinking it’ll bring people into seats, that we keep seeing the same actors over and over again. I love Tessa Thompson, but since her ascendance to mainstream popularity, she is in almost everything, and I’m not seeing room for other, newer stars to make it unless they come into the Disney brand first.
The studio system in Hollywood is imperfect, and Disney, with its flim-flam diversity checkmark technique, has proven to only do the bare minimum when it comes to this sort of production. It’s a beast that we created; we watch the films and cover them so frequently that I understand the eye-rolling when the media then goes, “Whoops, did I do that?” Still, just because we love it and care about it a lot doesn’t mean it is beyond reproach.
Am I going to be excited if we see Christian Bale playing some cool space creature thing in Thor? Absolutely. Can I still lament how Marvel/Disney films seem to be the main way for unknown actors to make something for themselves since we still keep giving the same prestige roles to the same prestige people? Yup.
(via Collider, image: 20th Century Fox)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
