James McAvoy has played a superhero– Charles Xavier in four ‘X-Men’ movies– and a supervillain– The Beast (and other personalities) in ‘Glass’— and it sounds as though bad boys have more fun, as McAvoy has revealed that he would like to play The Riddler for Warner Brothers.  During a Q&A captured by Fandom, he added, “I always liked him when I was growing up.  That would be cool.  I’ve always thought DC does really good bad guys.”

In the meantime, McAvoy will be back for one last go-’round as Professor X in ‘Dark Phoenix’, which will be released on June 7.  He will be seen later this year as the adult Bill Denbrough in ‘It: Chapter Two’ and in the HBO/BBC One fantasy miniseries ‘His Dark Materials’ based on the novels by Philip Pullman.

Matt Reeves is preparing to direct ‘The Batman’ a reboot of the character, which will focus on a young Bruce Wayne starting out on his crime-fighting career.  It doesn’t appear that an actor has been selected to play the lead role, but it will most likely be a lesser-known actor in his mid-twenties to early-thirties.  Adding some star power in the form of McAvoy could be a smart move.

Rumor has it, the screenplay for ‘The Batman’ includes multiple villains with some being featured heavily, and others being more background characters.  If The Riddler is one of them, Warner Brothers would be wise to at least consider McAvoy.

The first cinematic Riddler was Frank Gorshin, the same actor who played the role on the ‘Batman’ TV series and later on the two-part special ‘Legends of the Superheroes’.  Currently, Cory Michael Smith can be seen as The Riddler/Edward Nygma on FOX’s ‘Gotham’.  Jim Carrey portrayed the villain in 1995’s ‘Batman Forever’.

Christopher Nolan planned to use The Riddler as the in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, and considered Johnny Depp for the role before “settling” on Leonardo DiCaprio until the film was altered to make Bane the antagonist.  There were also plans to include The Riddler and The Joker in ‘Batman V Superman’ but luckily for them, they avoided that fate.

What do you think of James McAvoy playing The Riddler?  Would you like to see him join the DC film universe?