Joss Whedon may have signed his soul over to Marvel, but the director recently recalled his own idea for a Batman movie before the franchise was eventually given to Christopher Nolan.

Not unlike Batman Begins, Whedon's film would have focused heavily on the origins of the Caped Crusader. However, Whedon noted that he was more interested in following the early years of Bruce Wayne as "a morbid, death-obsessed kid."

Explained Whedon, "He's like this tiny 12-year-old who's about to get the s#!t kicked out of him. And then it cuts to Wayne Manor, and Alfred is running like something terrible has happened, and he finds Bruce, and he's back from the fight, and he's completely fine. And Bruce is like, 'I stopped them. I can stop them.' That was the moment for me. When he goes 'Oh, wait a minute; I can actually do something about this.' The moment he gets that purpose, instead of just sort of being overwhelmed by the grief of his parents' death."

But as we all know, that particular vision of the Dark Knight never really jived with Warner Bros. at the pitch meeting. And as Whedon recounts, his rejection wasn't the only bad news he received that day.

"The executive was looking at me like I was Agent Smith made of numbers," he continued. "He wasn't seeing me at all. And I was driving back to work, and I was like, 'Why did I do that? Why did I get so invested in that Batman story? How much more evidence do I need that the machine doesn't care about my vision? And I got back to work and got a phone call that Firefly was cancelled. And I was like, 'It was a rhetorical question! It was not actually a request! Come on!'"