Zack Snyder has revealed who he had in mind to play Batman if Ben Affleck had turned the role down.

Snyder directed 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which saw the iconic character entering his mid-forties, portrayed by Affleck.

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In a new interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Snyder revealed that he half expected Affleck to turn down the role, and as a result had given another actor a call about the possibility of playing Bruce Wayne: Rust and Bone star Matthias Schoenaerts.

“I was talking to [Matthias] a lot about it,” Snyder remembered. “He never got in the suit, but I did do a bunch of mock-ups of him, because Ben was on the fence.

“And I don’t blame him,” he added of Affleck’s initial scepticism. “Everyone should be on the fence when you’re asked, ‘Do you want to play Batman?”

In terms of Snyder’s future projects, it was revealed this week that the director wants to make a female version of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler starring Amy Adams.

The filmmaker, who directed Adams as Lois Lane in Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, said he pitched the actress his idea on set and that she was interested.

“It’s a kind of female version of The Wrestler, about a midwestern housewife who happens to have a pretty good body, and starts to do some bodybuilding competitions, and then falls down a rabbit hole of steroids and hormones,” Snyder explained in an interview with The Telegraph.

Snyder’s most recent film is zombie heist movie Army Of The Dead, which came to Netflix last week (May 21).

In a three-star review of the film, NME wrote: “It’s functional. It’s slick. The opening credits – like 2009’s Watchmen, arguably the peak of proceedings – are very, very cool.

“Oh, and it’s got a zombie tiger in it. No film with a zombie tiger in it – a lick even the master Romero never struck upon – will never not be worthy of a Friday night viewing.”