Can Batman escape the "Third Act Curse"?

[Kurt Wagner]

Originally Posted by TomPiltoff

Completely untrue.

Partially true.

[Kurt Wagner]

There are plenty of great trilogies...
The Godfather
Toy Story
Star Wars Episodes 4-6
Back to the Future
The Bourne Trilogy
Lord of the Rings

I doubt we have anything to worry about. Seriously. Nolan is a talented filmmaker, the script is strong, and there's a great cast involved in the project. Besides, the approach that Nolan takes to the Batman films makes it less likely this film will fail.

If anything, we should worry about the 4th film... What director might destroy the franchise?

[Chris Wallace]

Originally Posted by Kurt Wagner

There are plenty of great trilogies...
The Godfather
Toy Story
Star Wars Episodes 4-6
Back to the Future
The Bourne Trilogy
Lord of the Rings

I doubt we have anything to worry about. Seriously. Nolan is a talented filmmaker, the script is strong, and there's a great cast involved in the project. Besides, the approach that Nolan takes to the Batman films makes it less likely this film will fail.

If anything, we should worry about the 4th film... What director might destroy the franchise?

None of the movies that you listed are of THIS genre.

[Anno_Domini]

But Nolan's TDKR won't be going through the mistakes that other third films went through. That's almost a guarantee right there that Nolan's Batman trilogy will become the best CBM trilogy by having great 1st, 2nd and 3rd acts.

[I'm Not a Hero]

I hope it does. Nolan makes great movies. Don't know why he'd start flopping now.

[Chris Wallace]

Well when you look at the previous franchises that fell victim; we never saw it coming, at least not from the outset.

[Chris Wallace]

Originally Posted by Godzilla2014

True, though the strange part is that more often is the third "not as good as the first two" than it is "not as good as the second, but better than the first". Why? I don't know.

If the expectations are raised & the 3rd one falls short, fans will attack and condemn it relentlessly.

[Godzilla2014]

Originally Posted by Chris Wallace

Well when you look at the previous franchises that fell victim; we never saw it coming, at least not from the outset.

I saw worrying signs for Spider-Man 3. I just hoped they would work out in the final film.

Originally Posted by Chris Wallace

If the expectations are raised & the 3rd one falls short, fans will attack and condemn it relentlessly.

True.

[henzINNIT]

At the same time, I think there is an understanding setting in that this will not surpass the hype of the second film already. The title sucks still.

[I'm Not a Hero]

I've decide recently to stop this kind of thinking. I'm just going to go into the movie with no expectations. By getting your hopes WAY up you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

If the movie is "just" as good as the first one, I'd be perfectly happy.

[Wolv3rin3]

I think it's going to have a hard job surpassing TDK but am hopeful that Nolan is going to deliver an awesome movie to end his trilogy - don't know a great deal about Bane so am not quite as excited about that as I was on hearing Joker was going to be in TDK.

[BH/HHH]

I think it will but I'm worried cause the trailer was poor in my opinion.

[Venom75]

I think it's inevitable that the third film will be a step down. The Dark Knight was so praised both critically and financially and is considered one of the greatest superhero films ever,that any movie following it will be looked at as inferior,no matter how good it may turn out to be.

[cloverfan98]

Originally Posted by Kurt Wagner

There are plenty of great trilogies...
The Godfather
Toy Story
Star Wars Episodes 4-6
Back to the Future
The Bourne Trilogy
Lord of the Rings

I doubt we have anything to worry about. Seriously. Nolan is a talented filmmaker, the script is strong, and there's a great cast involved in the project. Besides, the approach that Nolan takes to the Batman films makes it less likely this film will fail.

If anything, we should worry about the 4th film... What director might destroy the franchise?

I have had some issues with the last two Batman films and I'm nervous to see all these new villians. Even though I love SM3, thats the same kind of vibe I'm getting here. Plus I want to see some more great character development for Bruce/Batman. I don't want his story arc be eclipsed by the new and old villians. Plus I hate Catwoman. But these can be considered minor gripes. I'm sure this film will be awesome and I am looking forward to it. If any director can make me like Catwoman and give her an actual character its Nolan.

[TLH]

Originally Posted by Kurt Wagner

There are plenty of great trilogies...
The Godfather
Toy Story
Star Wars Episodes 4-6
Back to the Future
The Bourne Trilogy
Lord of the Rings

I agree and don't agree with some of the listings above...

Godfather - third movie is considered significantly weaker than first 2; hardly escapes the 3rd act curse
Toy Story - yes, a truly fantastic trilogy that gets better with each movie
Star Wars - see Toy Story
Back to the Future - a good trilogy, but the sequels are notable steps down from the first.
Bourne - solid trilogy, gets better with each film
LOTR - perfect trilogy, but really just one long film split into three portions

[Freedom77]

I am still puzzled as to how the "second act" is so revered.

[Alex Logan]

Originally Posted by Anno_Domini

But Nolan's TDKR won't be going through the mistakes that other third films went through. That's almost a guarantee right there that Nolan's Batman trilogy will become the best CBM trilogy by having great 1st, 2nd and 3rd acts.

And you know why that is? No studio interference. Spiderman 3 sucked because there where too many people in the kitchen.

[BatLobsterRises]

A big reason I'm not concerned about this film suffering from the 3rd movie curse is I feel Nolan has been improving steadily with each film. As in, regardless of which is your favorite, I think in each film he's made since Memento, there's at least one area that he expands on or shows a marked improvement in.

At the same time, he's maintained a consistency and familiar quality about his work (which comes along with working with the same crew, writing and writing with Jonah, etc.) where he's established himself as an auteur.

So with that, I present my 8 reasons (one for each year that's passed since TDK ) why I personally feel this film will smash through that pesky curse and become one of the most revered film trilogies ever made:

1. The Dark Knight Rises will probably feel like an organic part of a whole, not just in that it brings the story full circle but simply in that it will most likely uphold the feel of the first two films.
2. Nolan will probably have employed every trick he knows, meaning everything he's learned as a filmmaker up through Inception.
3. He's consistently tried to make the scope of his films larger and larger and The Dark Knight Rises, by all accounts, seems to be on the grandest scale yet.
4. Where trying to go super "big" has probably backfired on a lot of third movies faced with the challenge of outdoing a huge second film, Nolan's insistence on story first should keep everything woven every tightly together as it did in TDK.
5. The mere fact that this is a definite conclusion means that the stakes must be higher than ever; a big story with big ideas should naturally manifest in gigantic action set pieces. There's no reason to hold back anything.
6. Nolan is well-aware of the "trilogy curse" and originally cited it as a possible reason not to to a third Bat-film in a 2008 interview. It's clear that the effort is being made to ensure that this film doesn't fall into a lot of the classic pitfalls of a misfired third movie.
7. Out of all the screenplays for this trilogy, this one had the most time to cook in the oven. There's no exact timeline out there, but based on what we know about when Bane was decided on by Nolan and Goyer, it's reasonable to believe Jonah had started work on the script at some point in late 2008/early 2009. That's a whole 2 to 2 1/2 years of work before it was passed off to C-Nol to polish off. Extremely long time. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's a better script than The Dark Knight. Jonah Nolan said it took him only a few weeks to hammer out a first draft of TDK with Chris/Goyer's outline. Let's face it, Jonah being the fan that he is, fleshing out a super dramatic Batman/Joker/Harvey story was probably like stealing candy from a baby. This movie presented a greater challenge, and it probably took a lot of time to work through it. The main thing is that this was not rushed by any means, and hopefully Jonah slugging it out for all that time by himself yielded some potent stuff.
8. Most important of all:
   Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

   

[Freedom77]

Originally Posted by BatLobsterRises

A big reason I'm not concerned about this film suffering from the 3rd movie curse is I feel Nolan has been improving steadily with each film. As in, regardless of which is your favorite, I think in each film he's made since Memento, there's at least one area that he expands on or shows a marked improvement in.

I absolutely disagree. I feel both The Dark Knight and Inception are his worst films. The Dark Knight more so.

I fear Nolan may just want to remake the success and hence create another clumsy mess. Except this time it won't be tied down to any outstanding performance.

I swear, if people start saying that this film ruined the trilogy... I'll scream!

[El Payaso]

Originally Posted by BatLobsterRises

1. The Dark Knight Rises will probably feel like an organic part of a whole, not just in that it brings the story full circle but simply in that it will most likely uphold the feel of the first two films.

For me, it's the main one.

It's all planned in 3 parts. That changes everything. Because for part three, most of stories claim for and ending or some kind of change.

You were talking about Spider-man 3. To me, Venom or not, the problem was that they had to do something more extreme but at the same time they had to be thinking in leaving stuff for the fourth movie. That's how there's a convulted Peter-Mary Jane arc there, but in the end they end up without much change.

[BatLobsterRises]

Originally Posted by El Payaso

[/LIST]
For me, it's the main one.

It's all planned in 3 parts. That changes everything. Because for part three, most of stories claim for and ending or some kind of change.

You were talking about Spider-man 3. To me, Venom or not, the problem was that they had to do something more extreme but at the same time they had to be thinking in leaving stuff for the fourth movie. That's how there's a convulted Peter-Mary Jane arc there, but in the end they end up without much change.

Definitely. I'm not even the biggest Spidey 3 hater in the world, though it's frustrating in that it was a missed opportunity in many ways. But yeah, it felt like a half-assed conclusion that had the scale you'd expect from an ending, but that's about it. Besides Harry's character arch, it didn't really wrap anything up. The theme of the film, forgiveness, was not a bad one to have but it felt like Peter's "lesson of the day", not something that unified all three movies.

So in short, you're absolutely right that you can't do a third/ending movie justice if there are plans in place to make more movies.

[Green Day]

I am hoping this can, reason to worry
1. Too many new characters
2. Tooo much hype from TDK people will expect this film to be better
4. Bane's dialog
5. Catwoman could be bad, Nolan is not the best at writing woman charaters
6. The ending could be bad
7. Too much in one film so the film will fill rushed.

[Chris Wallace]

Seeing Selina's costume doesn't raise my hopes.

[Caekzor]

Yeah... if only she had a cowl with cat ears then we would know this film will be amazing!

[Chris Wallace]

Bad approach to the costume almost always goes hand in hand with a bad approach to the film.