Recently, Jonathan Nolan said his brother Christopher Nolan was “on the fence” about doing a sequel to BATMAN BEGINS. But of course, he did co-write and direct one and THE DARK KNIGHT is arguably the greatest superhero/comic book film ever.
When it came to a sequel to TDK, which turned out to be THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and the final film of THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY, the brothers were on different sides of who the main villain should be, at first (via the HAPPY SAD CONFUSED podcast
Bane came out of a conversation with David [Goyer] and Chris. I was unsure about that at the story stage, but I [didn’t want it to be] backseat driving. Chris understood that what we had done and what Heath [Ledger] had done with [Joker] — you didn’t want to go anywhere near it.
Jonathan originally was thinking about The Riddler being the primary antagonist before coming around to the idea of Bane…
I started to play with the idea of The Riddler and what could be done with that character. But it did feel like close enough to the space of what we had done with Heath [as The Joker], and you really needed to [change direction]. There’s another genre shift there. One of the things I was excited about for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES was that if you do a kind of urban crime genre for [THE DARK KNIGHT], the third one was a post-apocalyptic film. You sort of go: Batman always saves the day and the city survives. Why can’t we destroy Gotham and see what happens afterwards?
The right choice was made. Having Bane be the main villain who has ties to Ra’s Al Ghul and The League of Shadows allowed the TRILOGY to come full circle back to BATMAN BEGINS and end Bruce Wayne’s story properly. Also, I agree with Jonathan Nolan that The Riddler could be too similar and too close to what they had done with Heath Ledger as The Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT.
Speaking of The Joker, I’ve long been of the mind that Nolan and co. would’ve brought back The Joker for the third and final film if Heath had not suddenly and sadly passed. Like J-Nol said, they needed a change in direction and genre and C-Nol certainly isn’t one to repeat himself or even come close to it.
For the full podcast, CLICK HERE or on any of the links provided. – Bill “Jett” Ramey
