What are you?
I'm Batman.
Christian Bale's interpretation of Batman
might be the single most important on screen
version of the character, but the Dark Knight hasn't always
enjoyed the prestige and critical acclaim of the Nolan
films.
Batman has existed in just about every tonal variation
you can think of, from his original comic book pulp
detective iteration, to a reinvented 1960s camp icon,
to Tim Burton's box office powerhouse, which
was eventually killed by the release of Joel Schumacher's
Batman and Robin, which made it look like Batman might be done
on the big screen for good.
There's been some true rough spots
for the caped crusader, which begs the question how did we
get here?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In the comic books, the final big Batman event of the 1990s
saw No Man's Land take over all the bat books.
It featured a horrendous earthquake
hitting Gotham and the US government
officially vacating the city.
This left Batman's Rogues Gallery to rule the city,
with Bruce and the bat family as the only thing standing
in between the citizenry and total lawlessness.
On the film side, as the 90s came to a close,
Warner Brothers didn't really have any idea
what to do with Batman.
They knew people loved him and wanted more of him
but weren't sure of the exact direction
to take the titular caped crusader.
As such, they took a more is more approach.
They developed and abandoned multiple versions
of a theatrical Batman franchise.
The first version was Batman versus Superman.
Tell me, do you bleed?
No, not that version, one that would
have distinctly less Martha.
Why did you say that name?
Various versions of the script were
based on the iconic World's Finest
Comics or the acclaimed Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness comics.
Warner execs thought it would make the most
sense to pair Superman and Batman up
for a theatrical adventure.
Remember, Alien Versus Predator and Freddie Versus Jason
had both done well at the box office.
So why not?
This version of the film was to be
helmed by Wolfgang Petersen, director of The Perfect Storm
and Troy.
It never fully captured the hearts and minds of the execs
at Warner's, and it was put on a shelf almost as quickly
as it was started.
It wasn't landing quite in the way
I think we imagined when we would put them together
on the page.
Over on the small screen, Batman was still
capturing the minds of fans young and old alike.
Despite the theatrical failure of Mask of the Phantasm,
it was a massive success on VHS.
This spurred WB into funding a series of direct-to-VHS films
set in the DCU continuity, Batman Sub-zero, Superman
Brainiac Attacks, and a repackaged Batman and Superman
World's Finest animated film we're all well received.
The DCAU, headed by Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski,
was chugging along beautifully.
With Batman, Superman, and soon Static Shock all on the air,
WB executives went to the animation brain trust
and asked to do a show about young Batman.
While initially taken aback by this idea,
Tim and company eventually came up
with the idea of doing a show about a teenager
in the near future who takes up the mantle of Batman.
This project eventually became Batman Beyond.
I am Batman.
Debuting in January of 1999, the show
lasted a total of three seasons and 50 episodes.
It was a middling ratings success
but set the fan world on fire.
There was so much demand for Terry McGinnis as Batman
that a feature film was produced in the previously
successful model of Sub-zero and World's Finest.
Return of the Joker, as the title would suggest,
saw the return of one of Bruce Wayne's most iconic villains
to haunt Terry McGinnis's neo Gotham.
Released December 12, 2000, the film
is commonly thought of as one of the best Batman films
ever produced, rivaling Mask of the Phantasm in its complexity,
character development, and stylish action.
Hello, Gotham.
Joker's back in town.
Still lacking direction of what to do with the feature film
franchise, Warner's decided to not waste any more time.
They would develop two different Batman films,
and then whichever was best would get the green light.
The first project they put into motion
was a live action Batman Beyond feature
film, written by fan favorite BTAS screenwriter Paul Dini.
The producers were eyeing Freddie Prinze, Jr.
as Terry McGinnis and were in the midst of negotiations
with Paul Newman to come on board as the elderly Bruce
Wayne.
This script ultimately was deemed too much of a deviation
from the core brand of Batman and lost out to the project
that most Batman fans wished had made it to the big screen
more than any of the other unmade
bat projects, Darren Aronofsky's Batman Year One.
From this moment on, none of you are safe.
No not that version either.
The picture was co-written with Batman Year One comic book
scribe Frank Miller and would have been a 1970s period piece.
It was designed to take place in real time, 33 years
after Batman's first published appearance in 1939.
The story is a loose interpretation
of Year One mixed with elements of Taxi Driver.
Bruce, an orphan from birth, doesn't he's
the son of the wealthy Wayne family.
In this incarnation, he's raised by an African-American auto
body mechanic named Big Al.
We follow the obviously mentally unstable Wayne
as he spends his first year as a crime fighter,
putting together the costume, building the Batmobile, which
in this version is just an Oldsmobile with a school bus
engine in it, and tracking down his first criminals.
Aronofsky has since said that he wanted Joaquin Phoenix to play
this incarnation of Bruce.
Can you introduce me as Joker?
Unfortunately, the studio was reluctant to pull the trigger
on something so avant garde and extreme.
They were nervous about the period piece aspect,
how obviously unhinged Bruce Wayne
was, and the level of violence in the film.
There's a whole subplot of Bruce using superheated bat insignias
to brand his enemies faces.
Warner's ultimately opted to part ways
with Aronofsky and Miller.
The film was never produced but remains
a tantalizing what if in the lineage of Batman
feature film projects.
It just happened to ultimately be far too dark.
Meanwhile, in the comics publishing world,
the books were about to enjoy a refresh from some
of the industry's top talent.
2003's Batman Hush and Under the Red
Hood were embraced by fans everywhere.
They sum up the general tone of the comics during this time.
The 90s were rough.
Uneven quality, inconsistent creative teams,
and gimmicky event series ruled the decade.
So by the time the 2000s rolled around,
there was a lot of surgery that needed to happen.
Most of the comics in the early 2000s
are concerned with trying to make everything fit
continuitywise.
And when they're not expressly doing that,
they're adding retroactive continuity to try and generate
space for themselves.
The 2000s were generally an era of attempting to rebuild.
I might not be a hero, but I'm certainly not a killer.
2004 saw the release of the Halle Berry vehicle
Catwoman, which was directed by first time director Pitof.
The film was derided as one of the worst films ever made.
The only reason this film was even produced
is that it had been in development since the Michelle
Pfeiffer Catwoman made such a splash in Batman Returns.
The actress was attached to the project for close to a decade.
However, by the time there was finally creative consensus,
she had aged out of the role.
To say audiences did not respond well
to Halle Berry's patient price is putting it politely.
Get ready for a bigger and better Batmobile.
OnStar, how can I help you, Batman?
Justice begins.
Thankfully, the back-to-back failures
of Batman and Robin and Catwoman caused
Warner's to rethink their approach.
The studio hand-selected up and coming auteur
filmmaker Christopher Nolan to helm the next bat project off
of the financial success of his Insomnia remake
and the stylistic and artistic success that
was the arthouse indie film Memento, Nolan had
been carving out an interesting reputation for himself.
Thanks to a string of high concept, well-executed genre
efforts that focused on tormented men
with mysterious pasts, this seemed
like the perfect director to create
a Bruce Wayne for the 2000s.
I've got a version of this that's going to be different.
I've got a version of this that is worthwhile.
Nolan was paired with Blade screenwriter David Goyer,
and the pair began crafting a story unlike what the genre had
been graced with previously.
His expressed goals with the picture
were to create an epic on the scale of Lawrence of Arabia.
The duo sourced ideas from the comics The Man
Who Falls, which sees Bruce traveling
the world extensively, and The Long Halloween, which
featured much of the criminal material used in the film.
Released in 2005, Batman Begins is a loose adaptation
of Batman Year One, written by Frank Miller
and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli,
and the 1970s Neil Adams and Denny O'Neil's
Ra's al Ghul issues.
It follows a young Bruce Wayne over the first year
of his endeavor as the Batman.
We see him learning about crime, studying criminal behavior,
training to be a ninja, and using his wealth
to build his iconic suit, batcave, and other gadgets.
So what do you think?
Does it come in black?
Starring Christian Bale is Wayne, Liam Neeson as Ra's al
Ghul, Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes,
and Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon,
Begins takes its time with the story.
It dedicates the entirety of its 140 minutes of runtime
to the idea that Bruce Wayne's arc for the whole movie
is going to be him becoming Batman.
Begins established or refined many of the tropes
and conventions that we know today of the superhero genre
on film, which is all the more impressive because they've
been being produced for close to 50 years
straight on the big screen at that point.
Previously, taking a whole film just
to explore the origin of a character
would not have been viewed as financially viable.
Literally, in every incarnation of Batman
previously, his origin is either hinted at or directly
referenced on screen, but none of them
fully explore the story.
This approach to the narrative, the stellar structure,
and the attempt to truly take the source material seriously
in a grounded and unflinching way proved
to be a massive success.
This is the Batman movie I've waited for my whole life.
Much in the way that grant Morrison took over the X-Men
and revitalized the line after the success of Bryan Singer's
X-Men feature film, in 2006, DC brought the superstar writer
into the fold with the task of shepherding the Dark Knight
to new heights.
Morrison, who was previously known for iconic runs
on Justice League, Doom Patrol, and Animal Man,
took a more openminded approach to constructing their Batman
run.
The high concept of their work on the title
was everything counts.
Every iteration of Batman, no matter how goofy,
it's all in continuity.
They took this everything counts idea to its logical extreme,
pushing the title to New levels of critical acclaim,
during the RIP storyline, where they killed Batman, the Batman
Incorporated storyline, where they had Bruce setting up
splinter cell networks of new Batman all over the globe,
and Batman and Robin storyline, which saw the original Robin
Dick Grayson taking up the cowl and becoming
the official Batman alongside of Bruce's biological son
Damian Wayne as Robin.
The core thematic throughline of their run
is that Batman is a totemic idea that
has existed since the beginning of time
and that Bruce Wayne is just the contemporary manifestation
of this foundational building block of the universe.
All new animated series.
It's a battery.
They're just button magic.
Returning to Hollywood, momentum was building for a sequel
to Begins.
After stepping away to direct The Prestige,
Nolan returned to Gotham with co-writer David
Goyer and his brother Jonathan Nolan
in order to craft a cinematic reintroduction of the clown
prince of crime.
Despite a shocking amount of fan backlash,
they would cast former teen heartthrob
turned would be serious actor Heath Ledger in the part.
His performance would be the cornerstone of the project.
This town deserves a better class of criminal,
and I'm going to give it them.
The Nolans and Goyer wanted to do
something distinct and definitive with the sequel
to Begins.
They decided to take a handful of comics
that featured the Joker, like The Joker's Five Way
Revenge and his first appearances
in the ongoing Batman title from 1940,
and attempted to craft a story that would reflect and resonate
with the modern world.
The Dark Knight, released in 2008,
not only created a highly unique and influential iteration
of one of the most iconic villains
ever, but also created one of the most
complex and genre-defining sequels ever produced.
The film is anchored in post-911 American fears, issues
of state sovereignty, Patriot Act overreach,
and institutionalized corruption are examined and deconstructed.
In fact, the very idea of the symbolism
of how we break down systems of power
was approached in a way that had not been done on film yet.
The Dark Night's scope and vision,
paired with the traditional superhero tropes,
created an almost instant buzz around the project.
However, this compounded when audiences got a good look
at the uncompromising crime aesthetic
that Nolan cribbed directly from Michael Mann's Heat.
Give me all you got.
This and--
Give me all you got.
All of these elements created something wholly unique,
which is all the more impressive when
considering that it was made in a studio system
where there are development execs, producers,
and individuals with differing opinions
who aren't always necessarily there
with the best of intentions.
Ledger's performance as the Joker
was unlike any other Joker up to that point.
After the announcement of his casting,
when doing press for the role, he
mentioned that the smile was going
to be less a part of his performance than his eyes.
Fans were initially filled with ire over this information.
However, the finished film carries the weight.
His dark, twisted, and aggressive performance
drew more from Tom Waits and David Bowie
than it did any previous incarnation of the Joker.
His performance pushed Bale's Batman
to unprecedented heights, resulting in a story
unlike almost any other in the bat canon.
You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with.
When it was finally released, The Dark Knight
pulled in just over $1 billion at the box office.
It is commonly considered to be one
of the most influential films of its generation,
with its impact being felt across the board,
even down to the way films are marketed.
Following the smash success was no easy order.
And yet, 2011 saw superstar team Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo
taking over the monthly adventures
of the Dark Knight for the new 52 line
wide publishing relaunch.
Snyder and Capullo created an interesting fusion
between the typical big two tights and fight storytelling
and the gritty, more realistic interpretation
of the Nolan films.
In fact, the Court of Owls storyline
recontextualized the history of Gotham, the Waynes,
and added interesting pieces to Batman's back story that
are undoubtedly going to show up in the future installments
of Matt Reeves' the Batman franchise.
You either die a hero, or you live long
to see yourself become the villain.
Back in Hollywood, the cliffhanger
that the Dark Knight leaves off on left bat fans spiraling
for years, wondering what would happen next.
Then in 2012, we saw the release of the Dark Knight
Rises, the third and final installment in Nolan's trilogy.
The original plan for this film is
that it would have centered on the trial of the Joker,
but due to the tragic and untimely death of Heath Ledger,
that was obviously impossible.
Heath Ledger has been found dead.
Drugs were responsible.
He was just 28 years old.
In the lead up to the film, rumors
swirled that Nolan was in talks with his inception star
Leonardo DiCaprio to star in the project
as a grim and gritty version of the Riddler.
Ultimately, the film drew inspiration
from the previously mentioned No Man's Land crossover,
with Bane being the central antagonist, portrayed
by Tom Hardy.
This has cost you your strength.
Victory has defeated you.
The Dark Knight Rises was a commercial hit,
raking in $1.08 billion.
It was not seen as the critical triumph of its predecessor,
though.
With somewhat clumsy Occupy Wall Street, homegrown insurgents,
and the war on terror metaphors threaded throughout the plot,
the film attempted to recapture the success of the Dark Knight
but ultimately fell short.
The release of The Dark Knight Rises,
while generally considered inferior to its predecessor,
has not harmed the legacy of the Nolan Batman trilogy overall.
The three films are still widely considered
to be a creative triumph.
They are often pointed to with some of the highest quality
superhero films ever produced and are widely
credited with legitimizing the genre in the eyes
of the old guard Hollywood elite.
Nolan's directorial style, the films' grounded approach,
and the overall style and tone are often
imitated and rarely surpassed by directors of all genres.
However, the superhero landscape was changing.
In the nearly 10 years it took Nolan to create the Dark Knight
trilogy, superhero movies went from being
a genre that was generally looked down
upon to being the dominant force at the box office.
And with the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
of interconnected films, DC and Warner's
had their eye on a new prize.
Unfortunately, things would not go smoothly.
She with you?
I thought she was with you.
Well, that's it for this episode.
Come back next time to see just what the dynamic duo will
get into, as we continue our series Batman
How Did We Get Here?
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