CHRIS NOLAN SAYS HE'LL BE ANSWERING THE BAT SIGNAL AGAIN

Probably the right move for him. When it came out, having to directly follow up a phenomenon like The Dark Knight seemed like a thankless task. But after Inception he has nothing much left to prove, and I think at this point everyone would be happy just to see him do his thing and finish his take on the series the way he wants it.

Very excited to see where he'll take the third film. I hope he brings more of that mojo he showed in Inception.

Do it all in IMAX!

I don't know if I want to see him take the story to a ending point or leave it relatively open for some one else to play in the sand box he created.

Because to be honest the world he has set up is so good, I would love to see elements of the Batman mythos Nolan doesn't use (Such as the rest of the rouges gallery, Robin/Nightwing, Batgirl or heck the whole bat family)

I too had confidence he'd be back, but all the same it's good to hear it from the man himself. Thanks to EMPIRE and CHUD for this most welcome news.

Have we learned nothing from X-Men Without Bryan Singer, or from the current threat of Spider-Man without Sam Raimi?

Finish it.

Even though Inception made great money, I want another Batman to make another billion so Christopher Nolan is given the keys to the kingdom on his follow up to Batman 3.

I like the batman movies too, but Inception, was way more interesting. The biggest challange won't be topping The Dark Knight, it will be making it feel like a step up from Inception.

Yeah, wrap that shit up.

I'm all for Nolan ending it in whatever fashion he wants. End it with killing Batman for all I care; it's not like Warner's can't reboot the whole thing anyway. I think he'll do a great story. Can't wait to see what he comes up with.

And post-Batman? INCEPTION more than earned a pass from me on whatever story he wants to tell.

I assumed he was well on his way to martyring Batman anyway. All the more reason for him to do this above anyone else.

Comic Book films are entering new and uncharted waters right now... and to be a slave to one filmmaker per hero, per generation is old hat.

And there is nothing to learn from the new Spider-Man yet because for all we know the New Spider Man will be awesome.

Yeah, finish it. I prefer reboots to slavish and convoluted continuity. Of course, I prefer original content to both of those, but I'm not going to pretend that will happen any time soon.

There's something too delicious about bringing the TDK "Caesar" metaphor to its logical conclusion, so I'll go out on a limb and say that that won't happen. Love to see it though.

I think comic films are the one property that can work with long form continuity over long stretches of time.

Look at the Marvel Movie-verse right now, continuity can make for some amazing stories that can't be told the same way when you reboot every time a new creative team comes aboard.

Plus the only reason I advocate leaving it open ended (and I am not even sure I do actually) is because he has crafted an amazing cinematic world, and a reboot will be different, I am not sure that means better.

Good news, I guess. If this is the last of Batman for Nolan, I'm happy, and he may as well see through what he started.

So you'd prefer an endless stream of the same tone and world (a world MUCH more limiting than anything the Marvel Universe is doing right now) by imitators without his directing chops?

If the reboot isn't as good, we have his trilogy. And I strongly believe that the film-making process does NOT lend itself to expansive universes like the comic world. A big-budget super-hero film (a genre on the decline, by the way) is too much of a huge effort, and Studios are too slow and cumbersome.

Life would be pretty boring if we never took risks like that though. Let what's done be done I say. I'd rather have more different types of Batman story than more entries in one specific style made by people aping another artist's themes and concerns.

I'm also concerned about this whole continuity based film making thing. The more I think about it, the less I want it to become a trend outside of the current Marvel crop.

EDIT: What Patrick said basically.

Well, he's stated that it's intended to be a trilogy, and I don't think Nolan should be straddled with the responsibility of upholding a franchise when Warner/DC can just hit delete on the whole thing anyway. His only responsibility is to tell the best story he can without any restraints or restrictions from the studio or DC Comics.

Amanda Waller (Angela Bassett) is in Green Lantern. Fan service or the terrible shape of things to come? I vote the latter.

*sigh*

Why do people keep thinking that taking a film in a familiar direction = more of the same? You can do ridiculously great and different things in the world he created. The continuity gives the characters more emotional investment built in, this allows any and all new characters to get the the lion's share of the development. It also allows the filmmakers to build on top of what came before which makes it easier to raise the stakes to higher levels and take the character into new directions, which is very difficult to do when you start from scratch.

People said the Super Hero movie was on the decline after the summer of 2007 when comic films started making money but people were activly hating them (Spider-Man 3, FF 2 and X3 and Superman Returns the previous summer) Then Summer 2008 rolls around and TDK becomes one of the biggest films EVER and Iron Man was a mega hit.

The Super Hero film is not on the decline, it is changing. I have been saying since 2008 that the way we view Super Hero films will be different soon. The mega intertwined Marvel Movie-verse is changing the status quo, with Comic Book creatives running or advising at high levels in the process now we are seeing Comic Book movies that mimic what a comic book does, not the established path of a block buster. Continuity is not something that really exists in feature films beyond two or 3 films (a couple notable exceptions do exist). Now we are seeing continuity existing in 5, 6, 7... 10 films, these universes are not going away, and the longevity of them requires a change in how we think of the typical block buster.

Continuity is a tool, it can be used poorly and drag everything down, or it can be used well and take cinema to new levels... I don't fear it, I anticipate it.

I'll believe it when I see it. Right now there's one good Iron Man movie, one bad Iron Man movie, and one decent Hulk movie. Nothing to suggest "taking cinema to new levels".

Having 3 films in various forms of production that all intertwine with 3 films in the can in a 4 year span is unprecedented.

I also don't agree that Iron Man 2 was bad... I think it is disjointed, and will fit very well in the tapestry of the Marvel Movie-verse because of it.

You know for people who are all about change as often as you can get it, you seem very unwilling to let a new style of film making tell you tales over several films and several years.

Actually, logic dictates that the longer you make entries into a pre-established sand box, the more hard pressed you are to do anything dramatically or thematically interesting, the harder you have to work to up the stakes, and the more trouble you have with audience interest and emotional investment.

That's the general problem superhero comics have had for the past thirty years and the reason that there's been universe(!) reboots every five to ten years or so since the late 80s. And even that has only served to complicate things more.

EDIT: Since fucking when is a disjointed (non-Malick) movie ever a fucking good thing? Especially in the genre filmmaking world.

People seriously doubted he'd be back?

I'm glad we get him to finish his trilogy.

But that groundbreaking precedent doesn't make a single one of the films good on their own. It possibly handicaps them from being so. But that aside, none of the movies have been part of any larger story at all. The connections are fanwanky and flimsy. And in 3 years, the only thing connecting all these films will be The Avengers, and if The Avengers doesn't work, that's an expensive house of cards.

Nearly all of the best stories for ANY super hero came years later and required some serious continuity to make them the truly amazing stories they are. Origins and strait forward one off stories that required no previous info do not always make the best stories. Ultimately that is the most important thing isn't it? Stories?

There haven't been universe reboots every five years... there have been 2 universe reboots since the 80s in DC (and one was less a reboot, as it more or less just undid the first reboot, but I count it because there were reestablished origins of many main characters)

In Marvel they have never done line wide reboots in the main series. They did it once in the Ultimate universe, but that was because the point of the Ultimate line was minimal continuity and after 5 years they needed to to keep the lines goals in tact.

I agree that there are a lot of problems with high continuity events, retcons, and general overstuffed continuity in main stream comics right now... but that is because of the 60 to 30 years of material on which everything sits... in the Cinema world there is only a few films to build from, it isn't the same thing.

Marvel ruled the comic world in the 70s and 80s because of the shared universe... DC had a major Renaissance in the late 90s, early 00s because of the same thing. The quality of story you can tell in continuity can be very high. I am excited that they are attempting to do so on the largest stage (the movie theater!)

It might be a horrible thing, it might make a ton of sense when Thor, Cap and Avengers come out... these films are not really something that can be judged alone, especially starting with Iron Man 2 because so many stories are bouncing back and forth. I really liked Iron Man 2, but recognize the middle was wonky, the middle is also the most stuff that crosses into other films, so I wont declare it bad until I see it as a whole. Especially since I did enjoy it.

Fanwanky and flimsy? Maybe in Iron Man 1, although I disagree that it was fanwanky... everything that was a call out to something else will come into play, so it has a reason to be there beyond wanking the fans.

The simple fact is no one knows yet. I am speculating, you are speculating, we are all speculating. Thor can come out and have some stuff about that stark box of magic wonders and put a whole new perspective on the entire second act.

It is kind of like a high continuity TV show, except now instead of a week to break it down we have a year.

I never had any doubt whether Chris Nolan will make Batman 3, even though during the filming of Inception he refused to delved any info on that because he likes to focus on one project at a time. I think TDK's ending was left unresolved for a reason, and Nolan wants to tell the rest of the story in the second sequel. After the enormous success of TDK and Inception, I believe WB will give Nolan all the resource and creative freedom necessary to allow him to make the movie that he wants to do. Batman 3 probably won't repeat the same success as TDK at the box office, but it doesn't need to; it just needs to be another great movie with excellent script from the new king of Hollywood.

Yeah, Nolan has the keys to the kingdom with Batman 3, he could put him in a pink suit, kill him in 25 minutes and spend the next 2 hours reading from the collected works of Maya Angelou... and I would wait in line to see it in Imax 3 or 4 times.

Tell us more, Criswell.

So far, no, it's not. So far this is all just you WANTING it to be that thing.

I wouldn't go so far as to say IM2 was bad. It wasn't as good as the first and didn't break any new ground character-wise. I'd put it somewhere around the quality level of the latest Hulk, maybe slightly lower. But it's not a bad movie.

Thor and Captain America are unknown quantities at this point, but the latter seems to be shaping up nicely. If BO is any indication superhero movies will be with us for a whilem for better or worse.

Not it is not just what I want it to be... it is clearly what it is. Why else is Faverau a producer on Avengers? Why is Joss Whedon rewriting Captain America? Why are they making such a strong effort to have characters of this universe co mingle as much as possible before Avengers?

This movie-verse isn't 5 films unique to themselves that happen to star characters who will be in the Avengers, this is 6 films that have varying degrees of connectivity that get even more and more connected as we get closer to the big Avengers film.

This is something new, something that has never happened in big budget cinema before... I am kind of surprised such a grand and risky experiment isn't getting more respect around here.

I'm with you on this one. Marvel was very gutsy charting a path toward the first big cinematic event that features various superheroes from different movies, and put things in their respective movies that all connected to the Avengers movie. While it is tough to make sure all the movies will deliver as promised, but Marvel makes an effort to put in the right director, actors, and production in all the movies under its new partnership with Paramount Pictures. It is a feat that even Marvel's competitor, DC/WB, with their more well-known superheroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc), won't even attempt.

I think Marvel should be commended for the risk they are taking, and as a matter of fact I have enjoyed all 3 movies Marvel Studio has made so far. I look forward to the upcoming release of Thor and Capt. America.

I don't know if I can think of too many great stories that were buoyed by continuity, mostly they seem to succeed in spite of being hampered by continuity. The best Batman stories of the recent past take place either before or outside of regular continuity. The best Superman stories of recent memory (Probably "Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow", "Superman for All Seasons", and "All-Star Superman") all take place outside of continuity.

The only stories that I can see using contiuity to its advantage is the current run of Green Lantern, but that was the result of one man running a small franchise with an iron fist to tell a well thought out story that had been planned years in advance and involved numerous retcons. In fact, the notion and widespread use of the retcon would imply that creatives would rather work outside continuity. I get the feeling that future Green Lantern stories are going to find themselves dealing with the repercussions of the Johns continuity in the future, at which point it will be retconned as necessary.

I agree that the most important thing is stories, but its common sense that being beholden to thousands of pages of back-story is a hindrance to the creative individual. Continuity limits new possibilities, rather than enabling them,

I will also admit that I exagerrated the amount of reboots in DC (I actually much preferred their earlier solution of simply creating multiple earths and starting stories over whenever it suited them, though even that became overly complicated when continuity obsessives started trying to make everything fit magically together).

A film must be able to stand alone as a work of art. If it is disjointed and scattershot, that is not made ok by it being part 3 of a loose conglomeration of franchises. A weak link will always be a weak link no matter what the surrounding chain is.

The thing is, I like TV, I like the medium of comics (whatever my grievances with superhero comics), but I don't want movies to be either of those things. I want movies to be movies.

TV and comics can play the serialized continuity game because they can be released weekly or monthly almost year round with a unified creative team behind almost every aspect of every issue/episode. A major motion picture is really too unwieldy a thing to work like that.

If you're trying to carry a story over multiple film franchises, they need to be coming faster and furiouser than films have had to before. If you've got six different film franchises working together that means you've got six movies all at some stage of production simultaneously. That means six different creative teams. Six different writers, six different directors, etc, etc. You can have one board managing them to keep them together, but ultimately that's going to hinder creativity. You can't easily make change a on set if its going to make plot point b in film c not make sense, which might in term make character arc D in film E incomprehensible.

Either you've got to script meticulously in advance and have all the different teams make collective deicisons in advance or you've just got to run with it and hope for the best. Considering that the last couple Marvel films didn't have script locks before filming started, because they are working backwards from pre-determined market-strategied release dates instead of working towards them organically, I have concerns about that process.

Of course, that only matters is they are intensely overlapping story lines and themes and characters. So far the Marvel movies have been tied together by cameos and references, which smacks more as cross-promotional advertising rather than cutting edge breakthrough storytelling.

ETA:

So far they've got two more films to get anywhere near the degree of connectivity you suggest, and I highly doubt they will. This isn't really anything meaningfully new in cinema, its just another kind of franchise.

It may be a grand and risky experiment, but it isn't one of filmmaking or storytelling, its one of marketing. That's the big gamble. "Will anyone care about the Avengers if they're burned out on them from their own films?" is the risk being taken.

I grant you Batman is the major exception to the rule (which makes sense as he is the most successful out side of the comics). But...

The Best...
Spider-Man Story (The death of Gwen Stacy, has the power it does because of the length of he involvement with Peter Parker and the linger effect it still has today on Parker)
X-Men Story (Dark Phoenix Saga... the story is totally neutered with out the cosmic nature of the Phoenix and the sacrifice Jean makes in the original Phoenix story)
Iron Man Story (Demon in a Bottle, a story like that needs lots of groundwork for it to have the impact it does... as a matter of fact, Iron Man 3, post Avengers, is a good place to start a story like that and that will be the fourth film with the character)

I could go on, but the general point I am trying to make is that these stories don't have the same power they do if they were the told in a better context. If you reboot the franchise every time you change creative teams then you might never have the ability to tell stories that good.


Blackest Night or Brightest Day don't have near the impact they do with out the full Sinestro Corps Wars and Green Latern Reborn behind it... and most of the reanimated dead people in Blackest Night carry with them no weight with out the continuity. I also would point out that Johns is more or less doing in Green Lantern what Nolan is doing with Batman (creating well defined stories over a long period of time) but I don't think many people want the next Lantern creative team to wait awhile and start from complete scratch or do something 100% different in a reboot down the line. They want the next crew to take the story on from where Johns took it... which is what I am saying MIGHT be a good thing in the films.



Ok, I might be able to help clear this up. I am not saying stories are NOT limited by countless pages of continuity... of course at a certain point it gets bogged down and limiting. What I am saying is that if you stop the films at 3 and reboot it, you limit the types of stories you can tell, or at least the effectiveness of how you tell them. 3 films is like 3 years on a comic book... don't go 50 films deep with continuity, but don't scrap everything after one guy finishes one set of stories.... build on it, take it in new directions because you have a built in acceptance of the character and his world that otherwise you might have to spend much needed time to re-establish. The new Spider-Man film will be a really good indicator on how much re-establishing needs to be done in this modern era of Super Hero filmmaking.

You are talking extremes... obsessing on the color of Superman's pants in panel 5 of an issues 30 years ago is one end of the spectrum, and wanting every story teller to start from scratch after the previous story teller finishes is just as crazy on the other end.



I don't know that I agree that it MUST stand on it's own. If one film works really well as a part of bigger tapestry of films then it has merit.

Two Towers doesn't work nearly as well as it does when in conjunction with the other 2 LOTRs movies.

The last Harry Potter movie felt like a giant prologue to the epic Finale, but that is only going to make the Finale all the better and when it is all said and done, Half Blood Prince will be looked on as an important step in the series.

These films are not solitary entities that are bandaged together... these are films that are being conceived together and being realized by separate talented filmmakers to get a lot of huge films out over a small amount of time.



There are no hard and fast rules about what is TV and what is Movies. Some say Sopranos seasons work exactly like feature films do... the point is in the feature film arena, on the biggest of budget stages no one has ever tried to tie so many stories together leading up to one big film. That is a new and exciting development, if it sucks it wont happen again, if it works we will have a new type of blockbuster and tent poles will become more like 4 walls holding up the ceiling at all sides.

You seem to make the assumption that the only people who are creative are the individual directors. Is their not something immensely creative and impressive if this all gets pulled of well? Of course creativity on the smaller scales might be hindered, but their is a creativity going on at a much higher level then ever before. You have producers over seeing multiple films trying to make a larger mosaic something never seen before.


OK, and I have concerns about putting Nolan and potentially Aronofsky on Superman... we all have opinions about how things are being done. We just have to wait and see if it works.

CONTINUED

Well Agent Coulson, Nick Fury, Black Widow all have appeared as actual characters not just cameos, and the references are more foreshadowing than random fan wank. This isn't like a character in Superman talking about Gotham City, or the Daily Bugle on Professor X's desk. When the Captain America shield ends up in the hands of Stark it alludes to the fact that his father worked on Captain America... something that will be elaborated on in the next couple films. It isn't marketing... it is stuff that is important in the coming films.

The connectivity I suggest has already been suggested in the footage, interviews and story synopsis of the future films... I am not making this stuff up. I also disagree completely that the risk is of marketing not film making. The risk is about film making in the same way the risk of making 3 LOTRs was about film making. They realized you can't really do an avengers movie with out the establishment of all the principle characters... the story would be awful if you had to establish everyone first... so they are making multiple films to get that out of the way.

If all you see is marketing, then you are just a really cynical dude and nothing anyone can say will change that. There is nothing wrong with that... be that guy, but understand your opinions are your own, and will be challenged by opinionated people who disagree. Or in other words, agree to disagree

I don't agree with that. Thinking like that seems to put limitations on what good filmmaking/storytelling is capable of the same way people are putting down what this shared-continuity thing can do.

Oh, AnalanoWally... always the odd man out. Hehehehe... Fight the good fight!

I'll bet you a hundred dollars they "establish everyone" within the running time of the Avengers movie. They establish returning characters in sequels. All the time. Watch the beginning of Iron Man 2.

Ok, maybe I went a little over board on that statement... but the reason why Iron Man works so well is because how much time they spent showing you what his character is all about, now because of what they are doing they can have that great character in Avengers with out all the time required to build him up.

I am not talking in absolutes here... I just think there is quality storytelling to be had by using an established world as opposed to starting all over again when one filmmaker finishes his tale.

Let's make that slightly more interesting and bet if they'll do a character introduction montage using clips from the previous films. I wonder how complicated that is in legal terms. You'd be seeing clips from films directed by other people.

I think we may be talking at cross-purposes. Redoing an origin story would be incredibly limiting (which is what I think you're worried about). But nobody says that every reboot has to be an origin story.

At this point there is enough understanding of Superman and Batman's stories that I think everyone would be perfectly fine if a new creative team with a new vision made an unrelated Batman film without resorting to telling the origin story again. I think they'd roll with that. Like they rolled with the different actors and styles of Bond films. Also the way that nobody felt the need to tell a proper long form origin on film for Batman until Nolan.

In films just putting Batman in a movie brings the baggage of Batman with him, just like putting John Wayne in a movie brings decades of baggage and meaning into your movie by the simple act of casting. We don't need to see the same actors play the same roles in the same set designs for twenty years, because the iconic status of Batman brings that weight with him anyway.

Anyway, I think we're kind of dealing with a non-existent contradiction here. Yes, Gwen Stacy dying was impacting because of the length of the relationship and its lasting effects, but there have been deaths in cinema just as, if not more, impacting as that for characters that we have only known for two hours or less. Maybe that's just a difference between the narrative modes of comics and films, but movie's don't really need that same kind of continuity to work (I'd actually argue that comics don't really need it either, but that's a different discussion for a different time).

And I will double or nothing you that there will be characters who were minor before or are new all together who will get more time being established than Iron Man, Cap and Thor combined because they are well established.

Of course there is some minor re establishing that, but I am more pointing out that smaller ancillary characters wont get as much of the shaft as you would expect from your common many character ensemble block buster... which has always been a core critique of those films.

I also want to add that I am probably the least cynical person I know, and I'm usually the first to get way too excited and geeky over things that I shouldn't be. I thought this Marvel Movie Universe was pretty cool when I first heard about it, but I've had some time to think about it, and I'm not as hot on it as I used to be. Maybe I'll be surprised, who knows.

I guess you feel Destroy All Monsters was the Ulysses of Kaiju cinema?

I actually agree with that statement... my original point got really warpped into a battle of continuity... I have been a steadfast believer that Comic Book films are going the way of the Bond for a while... just with longer stretches of continual stories.

I would throw a slight disagreement here. We have not gone more than 2 Batman movies yet that didn't have some major ties to Batman's origins.

Batman 89(Joker tied into Batman's origin, makes it personal)
Batman Returns (nothing)
Batman Forever (Dealt with the psychological reasons why Batman chose to be Batman, we got the physiologist who makes Batman look at himself and you have Dick Grayson who parallels Bruce's life)
Batman and Robin (I hate hate hate this film, but nothing on the orgin)
Batman Begins (full origin tale)
The Dark Knight (just awesome)

So when Nolan makes Batman 3 he will have the first film to be 2 movies removed from elements of Batman's origins.

Well that is kind of what I have been saying... you can make a film in Nolan's world that has a new creative approach on every level... look at how different Azkaban is from Chamber of Secrets in the HP movies... I am just saying I don't think they should start from scratch and get overly repetitive.


OK I don't know that we actually disagree on a whole lot. The point isn't that you CAN'T do it in 2 hours, the point is Comic Films are in a unique position to make those deaths/stories and other plot twists even more powerful by setting it up over multiple films. Giant crossover/high continuity films are a new beats, and I am speculating, but I really think it is only going to make the stories better, or at the very least something new and exciting... which I think we all want.

I certainly hope so, because everything I have advocated I truly believe... i really do think Marvel is doing something special here and it can usher in a whole new way to approach mega block busters...

It is good that...Christopher Nolan is directing, Batman 3. However, I am not as excited for, Batman 3 as I am for...The Avengers, Dredd, and Ghost Rider Spirit Of Vengeance.

Patrick Ripoll, I agree with you about, The Incredible Hulk, not being...MARVELous. But for me...Iron Man 1 and 2, are...Awe-Inspiring and Awesome! But, I enjoy...IM2 over Iron Man!

Considering how Nolan's been talking about Batman 3 in some interviews, this comes as no surprise, and my relief came in when he (in that LA Times interview) talked about breaking the writers block and coming up with a suitable conclusion to the trilogy.

Here's my hope for this go-round: Nolan applies what he learned in INCEPTION and what he did in BEGINS: give the audience a solid emotional hook and make the film very Wayne/Batman-centric. In his review for TDK, Devin referred to Bale as a "guest star"; I don't think it's that bad, but his arc definitely was not as memorably or front-and-center as Dent's. Bale has the acting chops and has proven he can carry the film.