Christopher Nolan was credited with saving the Caped Crusader with 2005's Batman Begins, while The Dark Knight ended up earning serious awards attention. The Dark Knight Rises wasn't quite so warmly received, but felt like an event movie at the time and broke box office records in the process.
Why the history lesson? Well, with The Batman right around the corner, producer Dylan Clark revealed to Empire Online that he's already told Nolan that he and filmmaker Matt Reeves are looking to top The Dark Knight Trilogy. Needless to say, that should prove to be no easy feat even after those stellar trailers.
"I’ve said this to Chris Nolan directly: ‘Look, we’re trying to be the best Batman ever made, and we’re going to try to beat you,'" he reveals. "Matt is interested in pushing this character to his emotional depths and shaking him to his core." It's a bold statement, not to mention a challenge The Batman could struggle with. Seeing as Nolan already did the whole "grounded" take on Bruce Wayne, comparisons to those movies are going to be inevitable.
Then, there's the small issue of #RestoreTheSnyderVerse fans only wanting Ben Affleck as Batman!
For Reeves, though, it's less about the competition and more about putting a fresh spin on the iconic DC Comics superhero. "We’ve seen a lot of great stories about Bruce Wayne witnessing his parents’ murder and then trying to find a way to cope with that by perfecting himself into Batman. But I wanted to do a story where he’s already been through the origins and does not yet really know exactly how to be Batman," the director explains. "And I wanted you to connect to him. Not only as Bruce, but as Batman."
We'll see what happens when The Batman is released in theaters on March 4, 2022.
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