Wednesday
27Aug2008
A Third Batman Film Left Up to Christopher Nolan
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 8:08PM
For the second time in ten days, we're
hearing that the door is wide open for
Christopher Nolan to return to the Batman
franchise - in fact, Warner Bros. and DC may well take the damn thing off its
hinges for the man - and whether or not he chooses to direct the threequel is
entirely up to him.
When last we updated this saga, Warner chief Alan Horn said, more or less, that the ball is in Nolan's court. Certainly the studio wants to keep the franchise going after the staggering success of The Dark Knight, and as a demonstration of their gratitude to Nolan and their faith in his vision, they're probably prepared to sign him to the most lucrative contract ever for a director. That's my belief, anyway.
Today, in a great Hollywood Reporter article that traces the growth of The Dark Knight back three years, producer Charles Roven is echoing Horn's stance that the right of first refusal belongs to Christopher Nolan.
"There are a lot of us who emotionally would love to do it," Roven says. "But it's really Chris' call. Chris is the kind of filmmaker who just doesn't think about the next movie before he has completely finished the movie he is working on."When will we find out? Sometime after Nolan returns from his extended holiday. "When he comes back, we will see how he feels," Roven insists. There would be immense pressure to do a third film. Obviously, the series is wide open for a dozen movies or more (not that we're recommending that). The point is, though, that Batman can kind of exist for as long as you want him to, and certainly the second film left little doubt that there was more to the story Nolan and his brother Jonathan want to tell. Adding to the pressure is the belief that Christian Bale's return in directly tied to Nolan's, as in, no Nolan, no Bale. Warner Bros. has to remember what happened the last time they started throwing new actors into the Batsuit. And while the pressure to make a third chapter is impossible to ignore, the pressure to make it right may be more intense. I would suspect that's at the core of Nolan's thinking: What can we do now? How can we continue Batman's story and bring in a new villain (or more than one villain) and have it not only be compelling, but on the lever of what we've already done? There has been a tendency to overpopulate superhero sequels with villains. Why these films feel that changing some of the very principles of dramatic structure will help their cause, I have no idea. One villain is always better. One villain and tiny villain offshoots are OK, but you can't stuff the script with two legitimate big-time bad guys. All this talk about The Riddler, The Penguin, and Catwoman worries me for that reason. It also worries me because we've seen it done already. Gotham City is full of great characters worth exploring, especially the way the Nolans explore them. I'm confident he will return, but I don't think we'll know that answer until he's certain he can make the movie he wants to make. Unless the contract is just a stupid amount of money, I'd give it a few months before we should expect to hear anything.
Reader Comments (4)
This is great and all, but can't we get full off this meal and do the dishes first before we start begging for dessert?
Dessert? The third film better not be like a dessert...
I bet it will be with in the next few weeks to a month at the most by the time we find out if Nolan's on for doing a third.
It's times like these I wish I could have a baby.
Batman doesn't need a love interest to humanize him. Batman Begins and Dark Knight set this up well. For that reason I pray that Catwoman is excluded.