While Christopher Nolan is seen as the forerunner of original ideas in Hollywood with films such as Tenet and Inception, the filmmaker once redefined the superhero genre with his The Dark Knight trilogy. The films saw Christian Bale as Batman and depicted a realistic version of Gotham and the Caped Crusader, and dealt with philosophical and real-world issues such as the nature of violence and the right to privacy.
While The Dark Knight trilogy is often placed among the greatest superhero films ever made, Nolan reportedly also had a hand in making one of the most underrated animated Batman movies. According to Bruce Timm, Nolan was deeply involved in the making of Batman: Gotham Knight, which was set between the events of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
Christopher Nolan Was Involved In Batman: Gotham Knight From The Start
After Warner Bros. faced a setback with the failure of Batman & Robin, Christopher Nolan jumped in to reboot the franchise and give the character a new spin. The resulting The Dark Knight Trilogy has become one of the greatest superhero films ever made and has often been credited with redefining the genre. The film even won the late actor Heath Ledger an Oscar.
While the canon events of the universe are still within the trilogy, an animated movie was released in 2008 to coincide with the release of The Dark Knight. Batman: Gotham Knight was an anthology which was set in between the events of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Inspired by The Animatrix, the animated movie saw six stories following the various adventures Batman had between the events of the films.
While the film was produced in the style of Japanese anime, WB Animation alum Bruce Timm reportedly oversaw the project. Timm is known for his stint as the co-creator of Batman: The Animated Series and has produced many films in the DCAU. He mentioned in an interview with IGN the extent to which Christopher Nolan was involved in the project,
“[Christopher Nolan and the filmmakers] were involved at the very inception of the film, to give direction and discuss continuity between the animated film and their live-action films. Communications were open throughout.”
While Nolan does not have a credit on the film, David S Goyer has been credited as the screenwriter of Batman: Gotham Knight’s fourth episode In Darkness Dwells. Goyer also co-wrote the screenplay for the trilogy with Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan.
Batman: Gotham Knight Introduces Many Characters Seen In The Dark Knight
While Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins directly leads to The Dark Knight, many events and locations in the second film seem to be a bit different. Prime locations of the Batman mythos such as Arkham Asylum are only depicted in the first film while the others in the trilogy do not place any scenes there. The Gotham of the two films are also significantly different.
The animated movie Batman: Gotham Knight ties up some of these elements and also introduces some characters much before The Dark Knight. Important characters such as Detective Ramirez, who gets blackmailed by the Joker into kidnapping Harvey Dent in the second film as well as mob boss Sal Maroni are introduced.
The animated anthology also shows Cillian Murphy’s Dr. Jonathan Crane a.k.a Scarecrow conducting a kangaroo court and sentencing a kidnapped victim to death. This is similar to the ‘sentencing hearings’ he conducts after Bane’s takeover of Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises. The film also builds on many of Gotham’s locations and characters such as Killer Croc and Deadshot, which were not there in Nolan’s trilogy.
The Dark Knight Trilogy, and Batman: Gotham Knight is currently streaming on Max.
