The Batman Franchise After Nolan

dear winter triangles..look beyond.

your pal,

dex

__________________
"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo.

I hate to disagree, but I think if this trilogy will all work very well in the box office, it might not only end on 3 films. At the same time, Nolan's contract with Warner Bro's only limit him to create 3 films and not to create more than 3.

So what are you disagreeing with again then?

I think he's saying he thinks someone else will take over without rebooting it.

yeah that worked so well last time when Schumacher picked up where Burton left off



I'd be surprised to see Warner brothers go that route again.




Batman Beyond is the way to go ..with say....David Fincher at the helm

after vanilla projects like social network and benji button, I bet he'd jump at the opportunity.

Fincher i dunno if he would be up for it.

I would say look for something like Nolan. Someone who is starting out and has critical hits (Don't have to be commercial) to his/her belt.

I'll draw up a list in a bit or otherwise name some of your own.

I think they can go both ways either up and comers who aren't necessarily well known, or well established directors with a track record.

Directors i could see adapting Batman Beyond

You know what would be really cool is Tim Burton at the helm with Michael Keaton playing the Aged caped crusader.

or

Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Shooter,King Arthur)

Tony Scott- We know he can do action, isnt afraid of sci-fi elements and handled drama well in man on fire.

Sam Raimi- nothing to explain here

John McTiernan ( Predator, Die Hard (s), Thomas Crown Affair)

Paul Verhoven ( Robo-Cop, Total Recall, Stormship Troopers)

Roland Emmerich ( Independance Day, Stargate, Universal Soldier,Day after Tomorrow)

Burton would be a clever wink to the audience, but i'm not sure if Burton wants to do Batman again.

I was thinking Duncan Jones would be an interesting choice, but he wants to move on to other genres as i have heard.

Duncan Jones is an interesting choice. The box-office returns of source code would go along way.

Even if Source Code doesn't do as well as people expect to, Jones taking over Batman may throw him with the big leagues...thats what it did for Nolan as well as Burton.

If someone takes over the series and doesn't reboot it, I hope they go with someone below the A-list. Heck, that was Nolan when they first chose him. When a character has been done this often, you need to pick someone who's willing to do something new and potentially risky, methinks.

Batman Beyond has never been done live action. its a brand new animal.

thats why it should be done.

Nolan didn't do anything risky. His only innovation was the conceit Batman was the only fantastic character in his universe, which was always a compromised idea as the villains he encountered were hardly realistic, just minus their usual costumes. Because of budgetary reasons I guess they already did that in the old Superman TV Series from the fifties where Superman mostly encountered ordinary crooks, which took him seconds to defeat when he finally showed up at the end of the episode.

__________________
It reminds me of a toilet paper on the trees
- Paula

I was suggesting that the next person should do something risky, not that Nolan did. The part that refers to Nolan is the "someone below the A-list" part, as he wasn't especially well-known when he was signed to do Batman Begins.

That said, I also think Batman Begins was a bit on the audacious side, relative to the kinds of superhero films people usually expect.

To a certain extent I disagree. Plunging the caped crusader into the dark and dusky gothika Nolan produced seemed to me like the logical place to take the franchise, in fact probably the least audacious thing anyone could have done.

Don't get me wrong, I love his adaption and I'm a huge fan of his other projects, but in terms of that initial creative direction, I wonder why he's garnered so much credit.

It was pretty much the direction the comic book had taken.

As obvious as it may have seemed now, it certainly eluded the people behind the earlier films for at least a film or two longer than it should have. But Nolan garners "so much credit" for the melding of different graphic novels, exquisite casting, and overall execution, I think, and not just for deciding to go grittier.

I think it's generally an oversimplification when people refer to Nolan's Batman films as "grittier." They are, but they're not overly so. What makes them brilliant, to me, is that they still "feel" like other superhero films in that they've got the gaudy gadget and are widely accessible, but there's more there for anyone who wants it.

Anyway, I didn't find the shift in tone audacious; what I found audacious was the choice of villain, and the extended prologue to Wayne's becoming Batman. I think more than a few moviegoers were surprised at how un-Batman like the film seemed for the first 35 minutes or so.

Regardless, i do feel that a director with the knowledge of Batman and with several critical hits under his/her belt would be a safe bet for the fans to know Batman is in good hands.

I wouldn't necessarily say it eluded them, just that they chose to take a different creative direction from the source material, an audacious move.

(on Nolan) He certainly did, as I mentioned above, I'm a huge fan of Nolan and certainly aware of his talents. As I wrote above,
I was exclusively referencing his initial decision to go "grittier" which for me felt logical rather than audacious.

I agree. When Kane and Goyer sat down to write Batman begins in late 2003 it was said that humanity and realism would be the basis of the film and I think that was ultimately achieved in the first 25 minutes of the film with the way Wayne developed, not just into Batman, put as a person as-well. The dark and gritty tones are just the reverse face of the same 'realism' coin. As you say, dismissing the film as 'grittier' than the others is a rather superficial disservice to what Nolan actually did. I think most people love the film though which for me is more important than being able to verbally instigate why.