Nolan doesn’t write his own work. He never has. His primary writer is usually his brother, Jonathan. His first three films, the ones that got him the job on Batman, were psychological thrillers. “Following” deals with obsessions, “Memento” deals with memory, and “Insomnia” deals with, well, insomnia. Between “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises”, he did “Inception”, dealing with dreams. One would think that he had a degree in psychology. Interestingly, the project that got him involved was written by an unknown writer of a well known series.
David Goyer is best known for his work as the writer of the Dark Knight Trilogy, but before that he wrote the Blade trilogy, even directing the much-despised “Blade Trinity”. Blade tells the story of a Marvel antihero, a human-vampire hybrid, that was introduced in the “House of Dracula” series. Yes, Blade was a Marvel character. Goyer chose to recover from “Blade Trinity” with “Batman Begins”, his reboot of the Batman franchise. Warner Bros. wanted to reboot it, as they had messed it up oh, so terribly.
“Batman and Robin” came out in 1997, while “Batman Begins” came out in 2005. With “Batman Begins”, we saw an edgier version of Batman. We saw the Batman of today’s comics on the screen, and people loved it. It was dark, it was creepy, it was mean. What Warner Bros. loved- it was edgy. It sold like hot cakes, so they knew they had something good, and it showed even more so five years later with 2008’s “The Dark Knight”. “Batman Begins” earned its PG-13 status, but “The Dark Knight” bordered on an R. It was everything that we saw before, and so much more. We saw evil fighting back, and we loved it. Nolan and Goyer did too, but they had no idea where to go with it. Because of this, Nolan worked on “Inception” while Goyer wrote the script for the final film of the trilogy, “The Dark Knight Rises”.
What Goyer was able to do was combine the events of the first film, in which Batman single handedly takes down Ra’s Al-Ghul and his League of Shadows, with the comic arc “Knightfall”, doing what Goyer did best, and fixing Burton’s mistakes with great characters. The Joker that Goyer and Nolan used in “The Dark Knight” was a vast improvement from Jack Nicholson’s in 1989’s “Batman”, and the dynamic duo did the same thing with Bane. In “Batman & Robin”, Bane was nothing more than a goon of Poison Ivy. In every other medium, Bane is the most vicious and calculating enemy that Batman had ever faced.
In “Knightfall”, Bane sets loose the inmates of Arkham Asylum to wear out Batman, in an attempt to prove his superiority, ultimately succeeding.. Goyer was able to tie this with the events of the first film, making Bane a League of Shadows reject, teaming up with Ra’s’ daughter, Talia, in a successful attempt to take over the city. This combination allows for one last hurrah, and a neat way to wrap up the series.
In the final moments of the film, you see Bruce Wayne “die” (not really. He fakes his death so that he and Selina Kyle can have a life in Italy), turning his mansion into a Boys’ Home and handing the Batcave (logically, the cape and cowl as well) to former GCPD cop Jonathan Robin Blake. Yes, Robin. He’s more or less a combination of the three main Robins (Dick Grayson was an orphan that would later become a cop in Bludhaven, Jason Todd grew up on the streets and Tim Drake found out Bruce’s secret using his remarkable gut instinct), and we never know what he does with the Cave. This is where things get interesting.
Snyder is a household name, with only 4 films under his belt. His feature film debut was the remake of “Dawn of the Dead”, followed by his adaptation of Frank Miller’s Graphic Novel “300”. After learning from the mistakes of “300”, he adapted his all-time favorite, “Watchmen”. He required every member of the cast and crew to read it, and there were so many copies on set that you can find a copy in two scenes- Hollis Mason’s Bookshelf when he gets beaten to death, and Nite Owl’s desk when he first has sex with Silk Spectre. It was after this that he made his first original piece, “Sucker Punch”, and then onto the original superhero.
Given what we know, Snyder is a bona fide nerd. Nolan isn’t a whole lot less of one. Snyder fits the bill perfectly for the directors chair, and Nolan has as much experience with superheroes, but why involve him? Realism is nice, logic is better, but Nolan is typically dark and brooding, not fun and energetic, unlike Snyder. Why combine these two? Simple- competition.
Stan Lee has said that he created the Avengers as a counter to the Justice League. 20th Century Fox, and now Disney, spent five years preparing for the “Avengers”, kickstarting it in 2008 with “Iron Man”. In the end credits of the movie, we see an eyepatched Samuel L. Jackson introducing himself as Nick Fury, after Agent Coulson reveals his organization to be SHIELD. This continues in the sequel, when they introduce Black Widow and even reference “Thor” (when Fury and Stark meet up in the Donut Shop, Fury refers to an “incident in Nevada”. The bulk of “Thor” is set in a small town in, you guessed it, Nevada), as well as using “Thor” to introduce Hawkeye (the film could have done without the Agent with a bow. If you look, it’s Jeremy Renner, who would continue to play Hawkeye in “Avengers”), and we even see Fury in the final moments of “Captain America: The First Avenger”. All this was five years spent building up to the largest film event of the year, and Warner Bros. couldn’t help but want to retaliate.
It’s been said that nothing breeds creativity the same way that competition does, and the DC/Marvel feud is a prime example. Marvel spent 4 movies building up to one, and DC doesn’t want to bother. Many fans, myself included, see recent announcements as a sign of what we knew- this is going to be interesting.
I everything up to now seemed like incoherent ramblings, this is where it’ll start to make sense. Months ago, Warner Bros. announced that they will start shooting their Justice League movie next summer, but the question is- will they reboot Batman? On theory says yes.
It was rumored that Warner Bros. would use Justice League to reboot Batman, having Arny Hammer as the Bat. Personally, I doubt this very highly. Arnie Hammer is best known for his work as the titular character in the upcoming film “The Lone Ranger”, but before that he played the titular character in “Billy Graham: The Early Years”. Okay, I can see going from Billy Graham to Lone Ranger, or Lone Ranger to Batman, but not in a million years can I see Billy Graham to Batman. The character himself would laugh at the idea of being portrayed by a man famous for playing the worlds biggest televangelist.
Thursday, Movieline reporter Frank Digiacoma told Screen Rant that when he was at a dinner honoring Hugh Jackman, he asked Christopher Nolan if Batman was going to have a cameo in “Man of Steel”. The following comes from the Screen Rant article.
‘Nolan’s actual response to the inquiry was, “I can’t talk about that. You know that,” but Digiacomo makes subjective note of the director’s facial expression, which he describes as an “enormous Cheshire-Cat grin.” He also noted Nolan’s tone as “cheerily” when he brushed off the question.’
I don’t know about you, but where I come from, that’s how we say “I’m ecstatic just thinking about it, but I’m not allowed to tell you”. This is pretty much our giveaway that “Man of Steel” is DC’s answer to “Iron Man”, and this leaves us with a question- is Nolan going to reboot?
One could pose an argument for either case. Nolan has said that he’s done with the character (that reaction tells me otherwise), and Christian Bale has said that his involvement depends on Nolan’s. This leaves with a couple options.
Possibly, Warner Bros. could find a way to show that Blake doesn’t have what it takes to don the cape and cowl, leading Bruce to refill the role, and put everything on its rightful course. This makes the most sense, as Bale is more iconic than Gordon-Levitt. Or, they could use it as a way for Blake to overcome the pressure that comes with the title of “Batman”. This makes less sense, but it would be a make-or-break career move for Nolan. Or, they could completely reboot it with a different actor altogether. I don’t see Nolan having that reaction for this route, but film is a path of endless possibilities. Comics even more so.
DC doesn’t have a very good history with their movies, and Nolan could be the face they needed to change that. “The Dark Knight” was the first film to beat “Titanic” at the box office, followed steadily by “Avatar” and then “Avengers”. One factor that shows how serious Warner Bros. is about their change of tactics is their upstart show, “Arrow”.
They made a lot of mistakes with “Smallville”, and they know it. They turned 5 minutes of movie into 5 seasons of teenie-bopper bullshit. They’d tie in another hero or villain occasionally, but for the most part it was screwing up needless parts of Superman’s origin story. Sadly, it was the most popular drama on television, right next to “One Tree Hill”. Blegh. For “Arrow”, they learned from more successful show “Supernatural”.
“Supernatual” is a healthy mix of action and drama, and “Arrow” follows in the same vein, while staying closer to the comics than “Smallville”. The other mistake they made with “Smallville” was looking at the early years of a superhero as iconic as Superman, while Arrow looks at a B-lister like Green Arrow. By looking at the action and the drama with equal intensity, they’re able to make a great show out of a mediocre hero. If that and “The Dark Knight” don’t show a more grown up DC, then I don’t know what does.
In the end, DC knows that they needed to grow up, and they did. They made their mistakes, and they learned from them. Where that will lead them, time alone will tell. Personally, I’m excited to see where this will go. You can bet your ass that I’ll be in line to see “Man of Steel” when it hits theaters, just to see if Batman makes an appearance, just like I’ve been watching every episode of “Arrow” just to see how long it takes him to use the alias of “Green Arrow”. Stay classy, geeks.