Last week, Inception broke the 0m worldwide gross milestone. A big success story, to be sure, but after The Dark Knight’s bn+ number, it perhaps isn’t really a major surprise. It was even less of a surprise when it was revealed that Nolan would be at the helm for Batman 3 once Inception was done and dusted, but as the Inception train begins slowing to a halt, i can’t help but ask myself, was Batman 3 the right decision for Nolan’s career?
Nolan made his name with clever, twisting drama, and it is only his last couple of movies that have led to his being considered an action movie director. Films like Memento and The Prestige used human interest and intricate plotting to make an impact, and there is a risk that with his new action movie sensibilities, he could begin to lose what made him great as a filmmaker in the first place. This is one major reason why i feel it would have been wise to step away from the Batman franchise, but there are several more…
It’s a no-win situation.
As i said at the outset, The Dark Knight made over $1b worldwide. This makes it one of the highest grossing films of all time, leaving any attempt to top it financially virtually impossible. There will be much expectation, however, from both fans and studio. If it makes considerably less than the Nolan’s second Batman movie, it could be considered a failure.
The Dark Knight is also considered by many to be one of the best movies ever made, currently holding 11th place in the IMDb250 list. Again, this leaves expectation impossibly high, and it is highly unlikely Nolan can match it with the third film. This, again, could result in the movie being considered a failure. The Dark Knight’s plot was very well constructed, and complemented by some fine acting performances. A lot of elements came together perfectly, and the chances of Nolan experiencing the same fortune again are slim.
On the other hand, if he does top The Dark Knight financially and critically, he could be pressurized into considering staying on once again for a Batman 4. Whilst he has made it fairly clear that he doesn’t want to make more than a trilogy of films, if Warner Bros lean on him, and the fans scream out for another one, it will put the director into a very difficult situation. He could well find himself accused of turning his back on the franchise that brought him to the masses if he has to publicly turn down another Batman movie.
The actor playing the villain will be compared to Heath Ledger.
It’s unfair, and it’s inevitable. Heath Ledger carved out one of the greatest villain performances in cinematic history, and his presence, and the circumstances around it, were a big part of The Dark Knight’s success. The pressure will be on for whoever plays the principal villain in Batman 3, whoever it turns out to be, and whichever character they play. The fact that Ledger would have most likely reprised the Joker role in Batman 3 if he hadn’t tragically died will only make the scrutiny that bit more intense. With that shadow looming, it will be an almost impossible part to write and cast.
We have already seen the speculation around the next Batman villain undermine the build-up to Inception’s release. Whilst on the promotional trail for his latest film, Nolan was subjected to just as many questions regarding casting rumours for Batman 3 as he was to Inception based ones. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt and other Inception cast members inevitably linked to the follow-up to The Dark Knight in recent months, it is clear that there is somewhat of an obsession with which foes Batman will face next time around, and who will be responsible for bringing them to life.
He’d reached a good stopping point.
At the end of Batman Begins, it was made clear that there would be more. When Gordon revealed the Joker card that was being left at crime scenes, it was a message to the audience that there was to be a continuation to the story. At the end of The Dark Knight, there was no such nod to a sequel. Whilst you could argue that there were plot strands left hanging, like Mr Reese’s knowledge of Batman’s real identity, and The Joker’s incarceration but not death, the final scenes, with Batman riding off into the night, did not beg a follow up.
Batman knew that the people of Gotham would never truly accept him as their hero, no matter how much good he did, and that he was destined to live life as an outcast. This could easily be left as the conclusion of his journey, doomed to protect Gotham from behind the anonymity of his mask, a figure of mistrust and fear. A third film just isn’t necessary.
The biggest problem with following on from a film with so few loose ends is that any attempts to extend the plot strands seem tenuous, and if you start with a whole new story there is a danger of shifting the film’s tone from the previous one, leaving it feeling disjointed from the series. This actually happened to an extent between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, with Gotham looking almost completely different the second time around, which means that in this case it may not prove so much of a problem.
The franchise is too restrictive.
With Inception, Nolan has been able to craft a story completely from scratch, making up his own world, characters and technology. Whilst he has been able to make his Batman series unique to his own sensibilities, he is very much constrained by the logic and history of the comic series.
I have no doubts Nolan and his writing team can put together another compelling Batman story, but it will always be within a range of restrictions, which must be quite draining, and even frustrating at times. By casting off the shackles of Batman’s world, the talented filmmaker would be free to create original stories, exploring the themes and ideas he really wants to without having to keep grounded to a particular set of rules.
Inception was almost pure sci-fi, and Nolan set out his Batman stall by grounding it as much as possible in reality. This makes it difficult to be too inventive with the plot, and makes any science fiction based cheat such as the one seen in The Prestige much harder to get away with. Incidentally, this also makes a lot of the comic book characters difficult to realise on screen in the Batman world that Nolan has created.
He won’t improve on his weakest areas as a filmmaker.
The biggest criticism levelled at all of Nolan’s work is an inability to put genuine emotion up on screen. All of the characters that lead Nolan’s work are motivated by the same thing. Obsession. It is clearly a reflection of his own obsession with filmmaking, but the problem is that this type of character is not conducive to telling emotional, human interest stories.
This is made worse by the restrictions of the Batman character. Even Inception, despite a story revolving around a father trying to be reunited with his children, and the casting of one of the finest actors plying their trade today, did not have the emotional depth that truly great filmmaking requires.
The problem with the action movies that Nolan is now making is that they leave little time for personal drama, three-dimensional characterisation and exploration of character motivations. In order to improve his ability to work with this side of film, i think Nolan needs to concentrate on lower budget, character-led storytelling. Until he can give us perfectly crafted human drama, i think he needs to stay away from big budget blockbusters that demand great thrills and high action to draw in an audience and recoup their budget.
I understand that the reason Nolan was able to get a green light for Inception, his passion project, was his commitment to the Batman series, and its continuing success. I’m sure that by making Batman 3 he is once again ensuring that he’ll get to make the movie he wants to make once it is finished with. However, Nolan is one of very few directors that i can genuinely say i like every one of his films. My fear is that if he leans more and more towards the thrill-heavy action genre, he may well lose his filmmaking identity.
It would be a great shame if the director of great movies like Memento and The Prestige started making big movies that fell more towards the Transformers 2 end of the scale. This probably won’t happen, but there is a risk of getting carried away with a genre, and by making sequels to successful blockbusters, there is always great pressure to top the last installment by going bigger. We don’t want this from Nolan. He has given us one of the best, and most original movies of the Summer, and that is what we want more of, not franchise based popcorn fodder. I’m looking forward to Batman 3, and i will probably love it, but for the next couple of years i’ll find myself wondering what might have been, if Christopher Nolan had chosen to detach himself from Batman and make another original masterpiece.
Bazmann – You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann
