Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy is often considered to be arguably the best superhero trilogy of all time. The gritty and realistic take on the iconic DC character Batman proved to be a hit with critics and audiences and Nolan was praised for reinventing the superhero genre. The Dark Knight is considered to be a definitive superhero film that has now become an iconic title in the genre. The film through the character of Joker showcases the extreme socio-political effects of organized crime in addition to a relatable yet menacing antagonist.
A surprisingly weird incident happened after The Dark Knight was released. The mayor of Batman which is an ancient oil-producing town in south-eastern Turkey, launched a lawsuit against Nolan for stealing the name of the superhero from the town’s name.
Hüseyin Kalkan Planned to Sue Christopher Nolan Over the Batman Name
After the release of Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight, the director was getting lawsuits from a surprising source for an equally surprising reason. Hüseyin Kalkan, who was the mayor of an ancient town in Turkey called Batman, filed a lawsuit against the director for stealing the superhero from the town’s name without his consent. He told The Guardian,
“There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us.”
The outlet also revealed how the mayor is blaming the popularity of the character for the numerous unsolved murders and the high female suicide rate suffered by the town. In September 2008, he was imprisoned for a year for promoting acts of terrorism. None of the lawsuits filed ever made it to court.
Spike Lee’s Interesting Comment Regarding Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer
Maverick director Spike Lee recently talked about the unprecedented success of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. While calling it a great film, Lee had a thing or two to say about what the film did not show regarding the atomic bombings in Japan. He told The Washington Post,
“And Chris Nolan with ‘Oppenheimer,’ you know, he’s a massive filmmaker. Great film. I showed [‘Dunkirk’] in my class. And this is not a criticism. It’s a comment. How long was [‘Oppenheimer’]? If it’s three hours, I would like to add some more minutes about what happened to the Japanese people. People got vaporized. Many years later, people are radioactive. It’s not like he didn’t have power. He tells studios what to do. I would have loved to have the end of the film maybe show what it did, dropping those two nuclear bombs on Japan.”
Lee’s views are reasonable since the film did not show the after-effects of the bombing and the plight of the Japanese people and how much they suffered. Nonetheless, the film became a huge success at the box office with many directors praising Nolan for bringing a real and unnerving cinema experience.
