‘Our movie is very different’: Armie Hammer is starring in a new movie called ‘The Dark Knight’ and I immediately have so many questions

No, this isn’t yet another DC reboot (although, yes, we do have two separate Batman movies on the way). Hammer’s next project is just, y’know, a totally unrelated movie that happens to be called the exact same thing as one of the most iconic films of all time. It happens more than you think, actually. I’m sure you’ve all seen the Ashton Kutcher slacker comedy/creature feature Spider, Man! and Harry Potter, the Oscar-winning indie drama starring Daniel Day Lewis as an impoverished Welsh coal-miner.

As per Variety, Hammer has landed the lead role in The Dark Knight, the latest low-budget epic from director Uwe Boll. For anyone unfamiliar with the name, Boll has built his reputation as a prolific purveyor of cinematic pap. Generally releasing straight-to-disc/VOD, a rare theatrical enterprise of his — 2005’s video game adaptation Alone in the Dark — is widely regarded as one of the worst films of all time and sports just 1% on Rotten Tomatoes. This will be his 37th film in total.

“The story of The Dark Knight couldn’t be a more current topic, and I’m excited to bring it to life with this excellent cast,” said Boll, in a press statement regarding the movie’s announcement. But what about the bat-eared elephant in the room? Executive producer Michael Roesch maintained “our movie is very different from Chris Nolan’s movie, so there is no danger of confusion.”

Alright, fair enough, so what is Boll and Hammer’s The Dark Knight about? According to the official synopsis, Hammer plays Sanders, “who takes justice into his own hands as he sets out to hunt down criminals. While his crusade transforms him into a social media sensation and a hero in the eyes of the public, the local police chief sees him as a menace to society and aims to take him down.” There you have it, it’s all perfectly simple. One is about a vigilante hero determined to save his city but who is hunted by the police while the other is… Wait, what?

With shooting beginning in Croatia on Jan. 27, this will be Hammer’s first acting role since he was accused of abuse from multiple women in 2021 — the LAPD ultimately neglected to pursue criminal charges against Hammer, the scion of a family of petroleum magnates, claiming lack of evidence. Prior to teaming up with Boll, Hammer worked with such acclaimed filmmakers as Gore Verbinski, Guy Ritchie, and Luca Guadagnino.

It’s ironic that Hammer is now the star of a knock-off Dark Knight movie as he was once deemed big enough to play the real Batman — he was cast as DC’s very own, non-copyright infringing caped crusader in 2007’s Justice League Mortal, the infamously unmade superhero film from George Miller. So maybe the best way to describe Hammer’s career would actually be: you either become Batman or live long enough to see yourself reduced to playing the Temu version.