Was a Batman film something that you had long had a desire to tackle? And was there something specific that you wanted to bring to it?
Yeah. It came to me in a very interesting way, which was my agent, Dan Aloni, called and said, It seems unlikely youd be interested in this, but Warners is sort of casting around for what they would do with Batman. It had reached the end of its last sort of life, if youd like. And at the time, nobody used the term "reboot" that didnt exist so it was really a question of, "What would you do with this?" I said, Well, actually, that is something Im interested in, because one of the great films that I am very influenced by that we havent talked about was Dick Donners Superman 1978, that came out. It made a huge impression on me. I can remember the trailers for it, I can remember about Superman the movie, all of that. And it was very clear to me that however brilliant and it was very brilliant Tim Burtons take on Batman was in 1989, and it was obviously a worldwide smash, it wasnt that sort of origin story, it wasnt that real-world kind of epic movie; it was very Tim Burton, a very idiosyncratic, gothic kind of masterpiece. But it left this interesting gap in pop-culture, which is you know, you had Superman in 1978, but they never did the sort of 1978 Batman, where you see the origin story, where the world is pretty much the world we live in but theres this extraordinary figure there, which is what worked so well in Dick Donners Superman film. And so I was able to get in the studio and say, Well, thats what I would do with it. I dont even know who was first banging around the term "reboot" or whatever, but it was after Batman Begins, so we didnt have any kind of reference for that idea of kind of resetting a franchise. It was more a thing of, "Nobodys ever made this origin story in this way and treated it as a piece of action filmmaking, a sort of contemporary action blockbuster."
Grounded in realism
Grounded in realism grounded in heightened realism, grounded in the degree of realism that we expected at the time from, you know, our action movies, Jerry Bruckheimer action movies and things, that would have realistic textures, you know? So, "OK, lets do that." What I loved about Superman was the way New York felt like New York, or rather Metropolis felt like New York. Metropolis felt like a city you could recognize and then there was this guy flying through the streets. "Thats amazing, so lets do that for Batman, and lets start by putting together an amazing cast," which is what they had done with that film, but which I hadnt seen done since they had everybody from [Marlon Brando] to Glenn Ford, playing Superman's dad, you know, it was an incredible cast. So we started putting together this amazing cast based around Christian [Bale], who seemed perfect for Batman, but bringing him Sir Michael Caine and Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman and Tom Wilkinson. It was just incredible.
At that time, were you thinking, Im signing myself up for multiple films?
No, not at all. I only had a deal to do the one film. When I first spoke about the project with [screenwriter] David Goyer, I think we said, "I guess if it was successful.
" At the time, everybody thought in terms of trilogies, which I guess they probably dont anymore because they split the third film into two. (Laughs.) But at the time, The Matrix guys were doing their sequels, everything was about trilogies, "Whats the trilogy?!" And we didnt want to answer that question. Privately, ourselves, we started to put together a vague idea of where a second and third film were going, and then I immediately shot them down. I was like, You know what? Youve got to put everything into the one movie and just try and make a great movie because you may not get this chance again. And then, when it succeeded, we were able to think about, "OK, what would we do in a sequel?" We were able to adapt and grow with the way the public perceived the films and with what the films became, as opposed to trying to plan ahead, you know, five years, six years or whatever. And we were given the time by the studio to let them fall, so three years between that movie and Dark Knight and four years between Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises, you know?
