The Dark Knight Steve Englehart claims that THE DARK KNIGHT was based on his stories

[TruerToTheCore]

When DC wanted to make the Batman movie from DARK DETECTIVE I, they said so, and (eventually) brought me in on the project because, they said, no one could adapt me as well as me. But afterward, they didn't want to give me any credit. So when they made a movie of DARK DETECTIVE II, they said nothing. And when I turned in DARK DETECTIVE III, it got worse. I'm afraid this is a sad story...

In DARK DETECTIVE II, I created a handsome, blond, upright politician who had become the significant other to the Batman's former girlfriend, and Marshall Rogers designed his look. There it is, up above - twice. And just to be clear, the one on the right came first.

In DARK DETECTIVE II, that handsome, blond, upright politician - Evan Gregory - was a brave guy who fought crime in Gotham City because it was the right thing to do. He thrust himself into a fight with the Joker to save the woman he loved, and paid a horrible price for it as his entire left side was damaged beyond repair. The man who had been noble and handsome became a mutilated cripple.

Entire article: http://www.steveenglehart.com/Film/Dark Knight movie.html

Well, I do not believe it.

 

[nickyg641]

He writes as if he invented Batman and his entiere mythos, and acts indignantly when he sees elements that bare passing resemblances to his stories. All he did was essentially rewrite the character of Harvey Dent to be blond, and is flabbergasted when *gasp* an actor with blond hair is cast in the film. PLAGARISM, MUCH?

 

[Saint]

Sounds like he's imagining things. A lot of things. The similarities are obviously coincidental. What's more, even if the story was based on his work, the filmmakers wouldn't need to hide it. Englehart doesn't own that work, DC does. So it's not like they would deny him credit to avoid paying him. They've had no problem citing their other influences, so to say they would inexplicably try to cover up basing the movie on Englehart's work is asinine. This is a fantasy.

 

[[A]]

LOL @ Steve Englehart

 

[batman11]

I'm trying to figure out who's crazier: this guy, or the mayor of that Batman city out in Europe trying to cash on on TDK's success. Either way, they're both a little nuts.

 

[Mister J]

I figure 70 per cent of Batman was based on my stories and treatments. I'd peg The Dark Knight about the same, since all the main concepts are mine, though the usage of them was more free-form. As a writer, it's very satisfying to have created two Batman films, but it would have been nice to be treated like a human being, so I would sincerely hope that it'll never happen again. But there's still the unpublished Mad Hatter story in their drawer, and the unpublished Joker...

Wow. Someone won't be suffering from self-esteem issues anytime soon.

 

[Paradoxium]

Prior to Batman Begins (2003-4 I think), Goyer said Englehart and Rogers was one of his biggest influences in terms of setting up the structure... he also said he would not treat Miller as the end it all. He also mentions O'Neil, Loeb among other writers.

This probably has more to do with royalties, if so they should give it. Chuck Dixon got some royalties for coming up with the idea that Wayne had some of his Batmobiles developed by Wayne Enterprise that were in storage (BB's Tumbler). Something along those lines.

 

[Rolf]

http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Dark-Detective-Steve-Englehart/dp/1401208983

According to this he was right about them getting ideas from him for the first Batman movie.

Maybe he should publish another comic and see what happens, If the next movie follows a similar plotline than maybe he's telling the truth, but I always felt TDK was closer to the Long Halloween.

If you look around his site you can see that he claims most media adaptations involveing Batman were bassed of his work... I'm not sure how much of it is true though:

http://www.steveenglehart.com/Comics/Detective Comics 469-476.html

 

[The Joker]

I loved your brief run on Detective in the late 70's, Steve. But stop talking BS!

Oh and your Dark Detective mini was bloody awful!!!

 

[Scarface5]

This guy is an idiot. If he's claiming rip-off then the creators of Two-Face should do the same to him because that's all he basically did with his politician character........he just retold the story of Two-Face by changing some elements. What's next? Is he gonna claim that Aaron Eckhart stole his characters look. Someone better tell Eckhart and his parents to pay him royalties for being born the way he looks. No matter whom or what team tackle the Batman mythos, all stories about his early career or battles with the Joker and Two-Face will contain some shared elements because these were set forth decades ago by Kane & Finger when they created the origin stories for these characters. Besides, as was pointed out above, DC owns all the rights to this stuff so they can do whatever they want with it, he has no say in it. All he does is come off as a whiney little brat who wants his toy and others peoples as well........what a jerk off

 

[Bat-Mite]

He might have had some small amount of influence in areas other than the ones that he's claiming, but his outlandish claims here don't make me sympathize with him at all. Two-Face was around long before he got into the business, and it was ONLY Two-Face that the character in the film was based off of. Not Engleheart's Two-Face knockoff. And I would think that he'd know Harvey Dent is very handsome in the comics, to the point that the media nicknames him "Apollo". That's part of what makes his disfiguration so tragic, and it definitely contributes to his madness.

And the blonde thing is definitely not enough for him to justify his claim of character theft. Characters' hair colors are changed all the time in comic book movies, and Dent's hair color change didn't even make a ripple amongst the usually nitpicky fanboys. Stealing a hero's love interest also happens frequently in comic book films, especially if done by a villain or villain-to-be (i.e. Spider-Man 3). Was this guy drunk when he started mouthing off about all this crap?

 

[Anita18]

Wow. Someone won't be suffering from self-esteem issues anytime soon.

That reminds me of Stephenie Meyer's claim that her "rights as a human being were violated" when an early draft of the Twilight prequel leaked online.

No honey, your rights as a WRITER were violated. You only wish you were that important to get that online leak prosecuted as a crime against humanity.

And nobody on Batman except Bob Kane ever gets credited on the films anyway. What's his beef?

 

[lixdexia]

That reminds me of Stephenie Meyer's claim that her "rights as a human being were violated" when an early draft of the Twilight prequel leaked online.

No honey, your rights as a WRITER were violated. You only wish you were that important to get that online leak prosecuted as a crime against humanity.

And nobody on Batman except Bob Kane ever gets credited on the films anyway. What's his beef?

no anita...everything twilight related is a crime against if not humanity then at least good taste

 

[LegendaryCaleb]

That reminds me of Stephenie Meyer's claim that her "rights as a human being were violated" when an early draft of the Twilight prequel leaked online.

No honey, your rights as a WRITER were violated. You only wish you were that important to get that online leak prosecuted as a crime against humanity.

And nobody on Batman except Bob Kane ever gets credited on the films anyway. What's his beef?

haha she said that? oh my
this is sad but thats even worse

 

[Mr. Earle]

So he says that in his work:
> Two Face was blond
> he antagonised Bruce for his ex girlfriend
> he fought the joker and paid the price, meaning he:
> he became twoface.

Oh come on, he isnt saying he was plagiarized, he just wants some credit, and you know what, i think he deserves it. Turns out this whole overhaul and innovative approach to TwoFace in TDK wasnt so innovative after all. You guys better stop worshiping TDK for a minute and open your eyes.

 

[Bat-Mite]

So he says that in his work:
> Two Face was blond
> he antagonised Bruce for his ex girlfriend
> he fought the joker and paid the price, meaning he:
> he became twoface.

Actually, that's not what he's saying. It wasn't Two-Face, but an original character that Engleheart created. He was a goody two shoes politician with blond hair who stole Batman's former girlfriend. And then he got attacked and basically turned into the same thing Two-Face is. So the amusing thing is, Engleheart created a Two-Face clone, and then went on to claim that his clone is being plagiarized in the depiction of the real deal.

Oh come on, he isnt saying he was plagiarized, he just wants some credit, and you know what, i think he deserves it. Turns out this whole overhaul and innovative approach to TwoFace in TDK wasnt so innovative after all. You guys better stop worshiping TDK for a minute and open your eyes.

Gotta love it when someone comes on and decides to take up the thankless task of "enlightening" the ignorant masses. Your first mistake was to assume that everyone here thinks TDK is the be all end all of all things Batman. Just by looking at some of the names in this topic, I can tell you that you're throwing the "worshiping" accusation at the wrong crowd entirely.

It's not unusual for a character to have their hair color or even race changed in a movie adaptation (i.e. Harvey Dent in Batman 89, Kingpin in Daredevil, Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins), so I can't even believe that he's using that argument. And like I pointed out earlier with the Spider-Man 3 example, it's not unusual for a hero to have his love interest stolen away from him, either.

What he says is plagiarism, I say is coincidence at best, and that will continue to be my position until Goyer or one of the Nolans cites this comic as an influence. They'd have no reason not to, since they're pretty straightforward with what comics influence these films. I'm not saying that because I "worship" the film. It's my favorite of the live action films, but I find Mask of the Phantasm to be just as good if not better. I simply don't find Engleheart's argument to be a very convincing one, and that's that.

And while I admit that the character Engleheart created does bear a strong resemblance to Aaron Eckhart, I found this statement to be amusing.

[SIZE=-1]In DARK DETECTIVE II, I created a handsome, blond, upright politician who had become the significant other to the Batman's former girlfriend, and Marshall Rogers designed his look. There it is, up above - twice. And just to be clear, the one on the right came first.[/SIZE]

I'm... pretty sure that Eckhart was born long before his Dark Detective comic was published. And he even tries to claim that the movie's title was stolen! Come on now. Batman's been called "The Dark Knight" almost since his creation. Saying that the movie was called that to make it similar to the title "Dark Detective" is really stretching things.

 

[Temple Fugate]

sometimes failure is obvious, but in this case failure embodies the situation

 

[Paradoxium]

Ironically, Bob Kane gets the most credit but contributed the least. He was just the artist who's initial ideas sucked and to top it off, he plagiarized chunk of his drawing from other artists.

I would cut the guy some slack if he and his estate (since he is dead now) weren't such big classless ***** for not crediting Bill Finger.

The Nolan movies are more Englehart, Finger, Robinson, O'Neil, Miller and Loeb (well TLH mainly).

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/389/

 

[Street Vendor]

Englehart is totally off base. His Joker stories, while classics in themselves, are far too fanciful for Nolan to emulate. "Joker fish", anyone? Englehart's Joker was based on what Denny O'Neill and Neal Adams had already done to the character a few years earlier in the BATMAN title; also, Bob Haney and Jim Aparo also contributed to this version of the Joker in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD. These creators simply went back to the characters roots, and stripped him of all of the baggage that was introduced to the Joker over the years in the comics and on the Adam West TV show. He was a dark, menacing figure again.

Englehart's stories are terrific, and have classic Joker moments, but they weren't the revolutionary concepts he claims they are.

 

[Anita18]

haha she said that? oh my
this is sad but thats even worse

The exact quote from Stephenie Meyer is, "I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being."

Oh come on, he isnt saying he was plagiarized, he just wants some credit, and you know what, i think he deserves it. Turns out this whole overhaul and innovative approach to TwoFace in TDK wasnt so innovative after all. You guys better stop worshiping TDK for a minute and open your eyes.

All writers know there are only 7 original stories that do and will ever exist. What makes them interesting is the way they're spiced up.

If Englehart wrote TDK, it wouldn't have come out the same.

If he wants residuals or something, have him take it up with WB. Nobody except Bob Kane, not even Jeph Loeb or Frank Miller who are obviously the main inspirations for Nolan's Batman movies, gets name credit on the films. This just looks like sour grapes.

 

[Paste Pot Pete]

Didn't the guy in Dark Detective get his limbs cut off?

What's that got to do with the price of rice?

Love you Steve, but...next!

 

[Mr. Earle]

What makes them interesting is the way they're spiced up.

I agree, but it seems that his work has had a heavy influence to TDK.

 

[lixdexia]

I agree, but it seems that his work has had a heavy influence to TDK.

having read some of englehart's batman stories...no, any of his ideas popping up are coincidence.

 

[FCEEVIPER]

Get over your self Steve!

 

[Hole Shot]

Oprah needs to get Nolan on the show and call his ass out for ripping off Steve

The exact quote from Stephenie Meyer is, "I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being."

But Meyers doesn't take into consideration and violates our human rights to not have things that suck when she writes.