Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy is undoubtedly one of the greatest superhero movies ever starring Christian Bale as Batman in the chronicle of the titular Gotham hero. However, the trilogy was almost left incomplete as Nolan had no plans to move beyond the 2005 hit Batman Begins.
More than half of Batman Begins was based on the mythos of Batman’s origin and how he turned into Batman. For Nolan, the movie was the end of his tenure at DC without ever thinking of extending the franchise with the later installments.
Christopher Nolan Was Reluctant To Complete The Dark Knight Trilogy
Christopher Nolan made Batman cool again through his acclaimed The Dark Knight Trilogy. Although it is hard to imagine the franchise not happening after Batman Begins, Nolan was unsure of the expansion of the franchise, particularly the second movie, The Dark Knight. His brother, Jonathan Nolan, who co-wrote the script of The Dark Knight with Christopher Nolan, revealed that the director was satisfied with Batman Begins and wanted to move on from the project as he already had a lot on his plate. Speaking with Josh Horowitz, Jonathan shared that he had to convince the director that there was more to it.
“I think Chris was somewhat reluctant to do it […] He was, frankly, unsure about whether he wanted to make another Batman movie. I don’t think he wanted to repeat himself. I think he was very satisfied with the film he made. He was very proud of Batman Begins. I was as well, but from my perspective, I was like, ‘It’s like we’ve made this sports car. We’ve built this sports car and don’t you wanna take it for a drive?’ It felt clear to me that Chris was on the fence about making another movie. So it was kinda on me to prove [this is worth it].”
Thanks to the younger brother, the movie took shape and went on to be an astonishing hit while earning critical accolades. The movie got eight Oscar nods, winning two, including Best Supporting Actor, which went to Heath Ledger for his marvelous performance as the Joker.
Jonathan Nolan Was Terrified Cutting Out Parts Of His Scriot For The Dark Knight
While Christopher Nolan was busy with his 2006 sci-fi thriller The Prestige starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, Jonathan completed the first draft of The Dark Knight. When he came back, Jonathan said, “Chris convinced himself that ‘okay we’re going to take this gamble we’ll go back and do it one more time.’” He added “some beautiful ideas to the script.” But Jonathan was terrified over some parts of the original script.
“I was actually kind of terrified at some of the things that had been left in that script because they felt a little a little edgy for what we knew had to be a PG-13 Batman movie and so it was one of those sort of be careful what you wish for moments.”
The environment surrounding Batman is inherently dark, similar to his life story. On top of that, almost every origin story of Joker has always been violent and dark, but it had to pass the requirements of Warner Brothers, as they intended the movie to reach a wider audience.
The Dark Knight trilogy is available to stream on Max.
