The Batman Filmmakers Want to "Beat" Christopher Nolan Films

Both critically and financially, Christopher Nolan's trilogy of Batman films are considered the high point by many fans of what can be accomplished not only with the character, but also with superhero cinema, with producer of the upcoming The Batman Dylan Clark recently detailing how one goal with the film was to "beat" Nolan's accomplishments. Over the decades, audiences have been given a variety of different stories focused on the Caped Crusader, with these comments meant to reflect the challenge of being not only a compelling film, but also be the defining version of the character that audiences have ever seen on the big screen. The Batman is expected to hit theaters on March 4, 2022.

"Batman is 80 years of blood," Clark shared with Empire Magazine. "It's a thing that's so intense that when you say yes to it, you immediately feel, 'Oh sh-t, what we have done? How do we do this?' 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.'"

Part of what made Nolan's series so compelling is that, compared to other films that show Bruce Wayne as an established crimefighter, Batman Begins chronicled his journey from being an orphaned millionaire into the Dark Knight. The upcoming The Batman will also cover early years for the character, though he assured it won't feel redundant.

"It isn't 'Batman Begins Again,'" Reeves confirmed. "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 really know exactly how to be Batman. It is a Year Two story and I wanted you to connect to him. Not only as Bruce, but as Batman."

Reeves also went on to detail how he drew inspiration for the approach to the character from an unlikely figure that has been incorporated into the film's teasers.

"He's ... got that Kurt Cobain thing, where he looks like a rock star, but you also feel like he could be a recluse," the filmmaker pointed out. "When I write, I listen to music and as I was writing the first act, I put on Nirvana's 'Something In The Way.' That's when it came to me that, rather than make Bruce Wayne the playboy version we've seen before, there's another version who had gone through a great tragedy and become a recluse ... The idea of this fictionalized version of Kurt Cobain being in this kind of decaying manor."

The Batman is expected to hit theaters on March 4, 2022.

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