LOS ANGELES, Sept 24, (Agencies): Jake Gyllenhaal was close to landing the iconic role of Batman for director Christopher Nolan, apparently. As the Hollywood history books tell us, Christian Bale won the prized job in the end, going on to star in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises between 2005 and 2012.

But while dropping by the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, co-writer David S Goyer revealed that he'd "advocated for" Gyllenhaal after a screen test. "I mean, Gyllenhaal's amazing, Christian Bale's amazing, so who knows what," he said. Asked by podcaster Josh Horowitz whether there's footage out there of the unused actor in full Bat-suit, Goyer went on to confirm: "I believe there is, yes." He and Oppenheimer's Cillian Murphy have something in common, then.

Meanwhile, several years ago, Bale opened up on his decision not to play the Caped Crusader for a fourth time. "[He and Nolan] never were arrogant to assume that we had an opportunity beyond one film at a time. That's something that Chris always would talk about. He'd say, 'This is it. We're making a film. That's all we've got,'" he recalled to the Toronto Sun. "Then when they came and said, 'You want to go make another?' It was fantastic, but we still said, 'This is it. We will not get another opportunity.' Then they came and they said, 'OK, let's do a third one.'

"Chris had always said to me that if we were fortunate to be able to make three we would stop. 'Let's walk away after that'. Then when they inevitably came to us and said, 'How about a No. 4?' I said, 'No. We have to stick to Chris' dream, which was always to, hopefully, do a trilogy. Let's not stretch too far and become overindulgent and go for a fourth.'"