Casting Batman is usually difficult because everyone already has their own Batman living in their head. Casting the DCU Batman is somehow even harder. This Bruce Wayne has to stand beside David Corenswet’s Superman without looking like he belongs to an entirely different generation. He also has to feel experienced enough for The Brave and the Bold, a project conceived around Bruce’s relationship with Damian Wayne and the larger Bat-Family. And whoever gets the role could potentially be wearing the cowl for years.
James Gunn gave fans one genuinely useful clue before stepping away from DC Studios leadership: this Batman is not supposed to be dramatically older than Superman. Speaking on DC’s The Suicide Squad: Is It Canon? podcast, Gunn said Batman and Superman should be “roughly” the same age and described them as contemporaries and future best friends. He also shot down claims that the role had already been filled. As The Direct reported, Gunn said casting was approaching but Batman remained uncast.
That gives us an actual filter. Corenswet was born on July 8, 1993, making him 33 in November 2026. Batman doesn’t have to be exactly 33, but suddenly all those fan casts involving a Bruce Wayne ten or fifteen years older become harder to square with what Gunn described. So we’re ranking five actors who could fit the role — not five actors we have heard are auditioning. None of these names is a confirmed candidate.
5. Richard Madden
Richard Madden is the kind of actor who immediately makes sense when somebody says “Bruce Wayne.” He has the intensity, the polished exterior and enough dramatic weight to sell a billionaire who spends his nights terrorizing criminals dressed as a bat. The problem is timing.
Madden was born on June 18, 1986, making him 40 in November 2026, according to his IMDb biography. That puts him seven years older than Corenswet. Seven years is hardly an impossible age gap between actors. If DC simply wanted an established Bruce Wayne who had been operating for years before Superman arrived, Madden’s age could actually help.
But Gunn’s wording was unusually specific. He didn’t merely say Batman wouldn’t be old. He said Bruce and Clark are contemporaries who should not feel “drastically different” in age.
That makes Madden slightly harder to justify than the actors above him. There is also a tonal question. Madden can absolutely play controlled intensity — Bodyguard proved that — but the DCU Batman may eventually need to function not only as the terrifying Dark Knight but as the emotional center of a sprawling Bat-Family.
That’s a very different Bruce from the permanently isolated versions we’ve seen before. Madden could do it. We simply think there are cleaner fits.
4. Oliver Jackson-Cohen
Oliver Jackson-Cohen has probably been fan-cast as Batman enough times to qualify for Gotham residency. And we understand why. At 6’3″, with the kind of presence that can shift between sympathetic and deeply unsettling, Jackson-Cohen already looks like someone comic-book artists would draw as Bruce Wayne. His performance in The Invisible Man also showed how effectively he can project menace without needing theatrical villainy.
But once again, the age clue gets in the way. Jackson-Cohen was born on October 24, 1986, according to IMDb, meaning he turned 40 shortly before this ranking. Like Madden, he is seven years older than Corenswet.
That still works if “roughly the same age” is being interpreted broadly. Actors routinely play younger, and nothing about Jackson-Cohen makes a late-30s Bruce difficult to imagine. In fact, if Damian Wayne remains central to The Brave and the Bold, a slightly older Batman could make the father-son dynamic easier to sell. That is the strange contradiction sitting at the heart of this casting.
DC wants a Bruce young enough to feel like Superman’s peer but experienced enough to have an entire history behind him. Jackson-Cohen nails the second requirement. The top three do a better job balancing both.
3. Aaron Taylor-Johnson
This is where the age issue basically disappears. Aaron Taylor-Johnson was born on June 13, 1990, making him 36 in November 2026. IMDb lists the same birth date. Three years older than Corenswet? That is almost exactly what you would expect if DC wants Batman and Superman to feel like genuine contemporaries while allowing Bruce to have slightly more mileage on him.
Taylor-Johnson also has one advantage the previous two actors don’t: we’ve already seen him operate comfortably inside heightened comic-book worlds. He was Kick-Ass. He played Pietro Maximoff in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He starred in Kraven the Hunter.
None of those roles tells us what his Batman would look like, and we definitely would not want DC simply recycling one of those performances. But he knows how to handle physicality without letting action completely swallow the character underneath it. Our concern would be whether his Bruce feels distinct enough.
Batman casting works best when the actor brings something slightly unexpected. Robert Pattinson sounded unusual until we saw what Matt Reeves wanted. Michael Keaton sounded bizarre until 1989 happened.
Taylor-Johnson feels almost too easy to imagine in the role. That isn’t a weakness exactly. It just keeps him at number three.
2. Jack O’Connell
Jack O’Connell would be the choice that immediately tells us DC wants to do something different. Born on August 1, 1990, O’Connell is also 36, placing him almost perfectly inside Gunn’s rough Superman-Batman age bracket. His birth date is listed in his IMDb biography.
But the age isn’t why we like this casting. It’s the edge. O’Connell has spent years playing characters who look like they are carrying more history than they are willing to explain. ’71, Starred Up, Unbroken and Sinners all tap into different versions of that intensity.
Bruce Wayne needs that. The mistake with Batman is assuming the actor only has to look intimidating in the suit. The more difficult performance is Bruce when the mask is off.
This is someone who learned how to perform an entire personality for the outside world while privately running on obsession, grief, control and an almost pathological sense of responsibility. O’Connell could make that version of Bruce feel less polished and more dangerous. He would also immediately differentiate the DCU Batman from Pattinson.
That matters because Robert Pattinson is still playing Bruce Wayne in Matt Reeves’ separate universe. Skydance’s November DC Studios announcement confirms The Batman Part II remains in production while the main DCU moves forward separately. The new Batman cannot feel like an imitation. O’Connell wouldn’t.
1. Brandon Sklenar
Brandon Sklenar wins this ranking because he solves almost every problem the casting creates without making any one solution feel forced. He was born on June 26, 1990, according to IMDb, which makes him 36 — again, only three years older than Corenswet. That fits Gunn’s contemporaries comment beautifully.
But Sklenar also carries himself older than a typical mid-30s superhero lead. That is useful. The DCU does not appear to be introducing a rookie Batman. The Brave and the Bold was originally announced around Bruce discovering or dealing with Damian Wayne, which implies history: relationships, mistakes, former partners and years of activity that existed before the audience arrived.
Sklenar can plausibly play that history without making Bruce look like he’s from a different generation than Superman. And physically, he lands in an interesting middle ground. He is big enough to make Batman imposing without turning Bruce into a walking tank. He can sell the public-facing charm, but roles like 1923 have also shown that he can play restraint and emotional damage without over-signaling either one.
That balance is exactly what we want. Our Batman shouldn’t just look dangerous beside Superman. He should look like a man Clark might eventually trust completely.
Gunn’s “future best pals” wording matters because it tells us something about where this relationship is supposed to go. The DCU apparently isn’t building toward permanent hostility between Batman and Superman. They need friction. They also need chemistry. Sklenar is the actor on this list we can most easily imagine handling both.
The biggest wildcard is that James Gunn no longer gets the final say
There is one giant complication hanging over every Batman fan cast now. The leadership at DC Studios is changing. On November 9, Skydance officially announced that Jeremy Latcham will become president and chief creative officer of DC Studios beginning December 1, 2026.
James Gunn and Peter Safran are stepping away from their leadership roles and returning full-time to creative work. That means Gunn’s comments remain extremely useful for understanding the direction DC had been taking with Batman. But they are no longer necessarily the final word.
Latcham will oversee DC’s film, television and animation slate, including production, talent and strategy. Batman casting is exactly the kind of major franchise decision that now lands under his leadership. He could maintain Gunn’s philosophy completely. He could modify it.
The Brave and the Bold screenplay itself could also evolve enough that the ideal Bruce changes. That is why nobody should read this ranking as a shortlist. There is no verified shortlist.
Batman’s age is really about Damian Wayne
The most interesting part of Gunn’s age comments is that they create a storytelling puzzle. A 36-year-old Bruce Wayne works perfectly beside a 33-year-old Superman. But if Damian Wayne remains central, DC needs to make Bruce’s history believable. That does not require a 45-year-old Batman. It does require smart writing.
Bruce could have become Batman very young. His relationship with Talia al Ghul could have happened early in his career. The exact age of Damian could shift. And Gunn himself previously acknowledged that details involving Damian’s situation had been in flux during development. So we would not treat the original comic chronology like a mathematical equation DC has to reproduce.
The priority should be finding an actor who can sell both halves of Bruce: young enough that his partnership with Superman has room to grow, experienced enough that the Bat-Family already feels possible. That is why our final order is Richard Madden, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell and Brandon Sklenar. And Sklenar wins by the narrowest margin.
O’Connell would give us the stranger, riskier Batman. Sklenar gives us the Batman who most naturally seems capable of standing beside Corenswet’s Superman for the next decade. Now DC just has to cast somebody — and make every fan-casting list on the internet immediately obsolete.
