Jonah Hill has dropped out of THE BATMAN, where he was in negotiations to play one of the key villains for the film.

As reported by Variety, Hill decided to move on from the project as he and the studio were unable to settle on a deal. According to internet whispers, it’s based around money more than anything creatively-based, and according to Borys Kit, the best Hollywood insider in the biz right now, WB simply doesn’t want to overpay for their villain ala Jack Nicholson’s huge payday for the Tim Burton Batman.

Hill was slotted to play either The Riddler or the Penguin, which was seemingly up in the air for a while and based on whatever could be negotiated – which doesn’t exactly seem like the greatest way to pull a film’s cast together – but up to this point, things had been looking pretty rock solid for Reeves’ new take on the franchise. They eventually settled on him playing the Riddler had a deal been able to go through.

Robert Pattinson joined the cast back in the Spring in the title role, while Jeffrey Wright is set to play Commissioner Gordon, and just a few days ago Zoë Kravitz was cast as Catwoman. A really fascinating cast that Hill would have been a unique choice for, but c’est la vie. Reports also surfaced last night that the filmmakers were also considering Seth Rogen for the Penguin, but according to Kit, that also did not pan out.

As has been reported at multiple outlets, The Batman is aiming to incorporate a litany of foes, and while Catwoman, Penguin and The Riddler are the main baddies of note, there’s also been whispers of appearances by characters like Two-Face, Mad Hatter, and Firefly. Breaking with the tradition of just a couple of Bat rogues per movie sounds fun, and everything I’ve heard about Reeves’ script in terms of inspiration (things as varied as Chinatown…yeah, sure… and Darwyn Cooke‘s Batman: Ego) has me hopeful that this is the course correction the studio needs for the character.

Now to start brainstorming who should play these two uncast villains in question. Well, The Beat already has a few ideas for one of them!

The Batman is set to hit theaters on June 25, 2021.