Dave Bautista has made it clear he wants to play Bane in the DCEU.
While Bautista has the look of Bane, he recently spoke to Collider about why he wants to play the Batman villain.
Bautista talks Bane
“There are certain characters I’ve latched on to over the past 10, 20 years, and Bane was one of them,” Bautista said to Collider.
“No discredit to Tom Hardy’s version of Bane, I love that performance, I loved that film. I’d just love a crack at it. I think I could bring an interesting twist to it, and I think I could do the character justice.”
Bautista said he felt he could become Bane both physically and performance-wise. He even said he would go back to 320 pounds to get the chance to play Bane in a Batman movie.
“I could … play Bane in a way that’s not only menacing and ominous but also freakishly intelligent,” Bautista said. “Bane would be the type of character that’s so menacing and so terrifying and so intelligent, he would hardly ever raise his voice.”
Bane in Batman movies
Dave Bautista would be the fourth person to play Bane in live-action Batman properties.
The first was the worst, with Jeep Swenson in Batman & Robin, where he played a henchman of Poison Ivy. While the movie used the Venom formula, it made Bane into a brainless muscleman and was a terrible representation of the Batman villain.
Up next was Tom Hardy’s Bane, which Bautista referenced. This was a lot more respectful, as he was the intelligent terrorist who worked to help Talia al ‘Ghul in her efforts to take over Gotham City.
The third came on the TV show Gotham, with Shane West playing Eduardo Dorrance. This show changed Bane’s origin and lies somewhere between Hardy and Swenson’s portrayals.
Dave Bautista in comic book movies
Dave Bautista proved himself in Guardians of the Galaxy, where he not only took on the role of Drax the Destroyer but made him a massive fan favorite.
Add in roles in Vin Diesel’s Riddick, the sci-fi movie Blade Runner 2049, and the upcoming Army of the Dead, and Bautista has proven to be a genre movie star.
When James Gunn temporarily left the MCU, Bautista publically asked him to bring him to the DCEU. Now, Bautista is making the case to play one of Batman’s biggest villains and has the cred to pull it off.