Darren Aronofsky was working on his Batman movie from late 2000-2001; at that time, Joaquin Phoenix had appeared in movies like Parenthood and Gladiator, while Freddie Prinze Jr. was best known for feature like I Know What You Did Last Summer and She’s All That. Considering how much of a teen icon he was, one could certainly make the argument that Prinze was the more famous of the two back then, and evidently Warner Bros was interested in having a more “clean cut” Bruce Wayne.