Exclusive: Christian Bale In Talks For Fan-Favorite Star Wars Role
According to our trusted and proven sources, Christian Bale is up for a Star Wars role that may bring its darkest character into canon.
Christian Bale is probably the most acclaimed actor to ever get ripped to play Batman, John Connor, and former US Vice Preisident Dick Cheney (sorry, Ben Affleck). He has managed to maintain the delicate balance between critical appeal and pop blockbuster films for decades now, but there is one franchise that he has yet to crack. That may change soon because our trusted and proven sources tell us that Christian Bale is up for a fan-favorite role in an upcoming Star Wars project. Namely, we are told that Christian Bale is in talks to play the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed protagonist Starkiller.
The name Starkiller might not ring any bells for the casual Star Wars fan, but he quickly became a fan favorite after being introduced as the protagonist in the popular video game The Force Unleashed and its sequel The Force Unleashed II. If Christian Bale does indeed take on the role of Star Wars’ Starkiller, he will be portraying one of the more morally ambiguous characters introduced in the now non-canon Star Wars Legends continuity. Starkiller (also known as the Apprentice and Galen Marek) is a Force-sensitive who is taken by Darth Vader and trained to be his personal assassin to hunt down Jedi. Essentially, as Darth Vader is to the Emperor, Starkiller is to Darth Vader.
The storyline of Starkiller within The Force Unleashed games (and subsequent novels and comic books) is one of the darker ones even in a galaxy far, far away; he is the son of a Jedi killed by Vader in the post-Revenge of the Sith years and essentially programmed to be a remorseless killer. In various endings of the games, he either dies redeeming himself for the Light Side of the Force, kills Vader and becomes Palpatine’s new apprentice, and is reborn as a cloned version of himself. Fortunately, Christian Bale has plenty of experience playing tortured, violent characters and could easily bring the appropriate level of intensity to the Star Wars universe.
Notably, this is not the first time that Christian Bale has almost appeared in Star Wars. The British actor himself has professed his lifelong fandom for the franchise and is said to have been one of George Lucas’ top choices to play Anakin Skywalker in the prequels (which famously went to Hayden Christensen). Christian Bale was also up for a part in Solo: A Star Wars Story, apparently to play the mentor of Alden Ehrenreich’s Han Solo. The role eventually went to Woody Harrelson, but it actually sounds like Christian Bale has managed to dodge two Star Wars bullets so far.
Lucasfilm has shown increasing interest in bringing in characters and story elements that were deemed non-canon during the Disney takeover of the company, as evidenced by the appearances of Rosario Dawson’s Ahsoka Tano and the much-rumored introduction of Grand Admiral Thrawn. It stands to reason that the company will start mining the many popular video game series in the Star Wars non-canon, including The Force Unleashed series. This may be the best chance yet to see a feverishly intense Christian Bale wielding a lightsaber in Star Wars.
