Frank Miller Says Ben Affleck's BATMAN Movie Needs To, "Lose the Toys, Focus on the Mission"
The Dark Knight Returns scribe Frank Miller weighs in on where he thinks The Batman needs to go, his scrapped Year One movie with Darren Aronofsky, and Batman v Superman.
Frank Miller is a comic book writer and artist fans either seem to love or hate, but for the most part, there's no denying that he's delivered some incredible work when it comes to the world of Batman. His influence was felt in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy and in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice this year, but what would he like to see in Ben Affleck's upcoming take on the Caped Crusader?
"My dream would be to make it much smaller," Miller explained in a recent interview with Variety. "To lose the toys and to focus more on the mission, and to use the city a great deal more. Because he’s got a loving relationship with the city he’s protecting. And unlike Superman his connection to crime is intimate; it has been ever since his parents were murdered. And he defeats criminals with his hands. So it would be a different take. But it will never be in my hands, because it would not be a good place to make toys from. There wouldn’t be a line of toys."
That's an interesting point, but it may very well be the route Affleck intends on taking the character down. It's simply too soon to say.
Surprisingly, Miller seems pretty disappointed that Darren Aronofsky pretty horrendous sounding take never came to fruition because, well, it was R-Rated and wouldn't have sold any toys. "That screenplay was based on my book “Batman: Year One,” and yeah it was much more down to earth. In it a fair amount of time is spent before he became Batman, and when he went out and fought crime he really screwed it up a bunch of times before he got it right. So it was 90-minute origins story."
Finally, talk turned to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Miller has now seen the movie, but wasn't willing to go into too much detail about what he thought. He does after all still work for DC Comics, but if he liked the movie, you'd think he would have at least praised it. Instead, he kept his comments fairly vague, and simply stated: "I’ll just say: ‘Thanks.’ What can I say? — he laughs — no, actually I’ll withdraw that; I’ll say: ‘You’re welcome!’"
What do you guys think about all of these remarks?