An Open Letter to Warner Brothers Regarding a Potential Batman Reboot

Dear Warner Brothers,

I just got home from seeing the Dark Knight Rises and I have to say, “Congratulations!” While not reaching the heights of the second movie, it was a fitting end to Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale's turn on the Batman franchise. As a company that's always watching the bottom-line, I am sure that it does not hurt that the movie is making barrels of money. Yet, while your executives are swimming Scrooge-McDuck-style in pools filled with gold doubloons, a nagging thought must be dancing in the back of everyone's mind. Somewhere beneath all of the joyous, money-induced hyperventilation and dollar bill smoothies you have been consuming, the problem of what to do next must be bothering you. Well, I may not be a big time Hollywood executive or a Tinsel Town auteur, but I come to you, as a fan of Batman, with a humble suggestion: Please, do not reboot the franchise.

While the ending of Dark Knight Rises is certainly a definitive one for the trilogy, it leaves the door open for a new direction. I cannot be sure that this was the intention of the filmmakers, but it can still be used to your company's advantage. The reality is that any new Batman movie, regardless of who is involved, will have the weight of both higher and lower expectations on it. Some of your audience will expect a new Batman movie to be a mere shadow of what Nolan was able to do, while others will have their anticipation raised by the sheer quality of three most recent movies. This “damned if you do, damned if you don't” situation may seem like the perfect opportunity to go in a new direction, but why leave the Gotham that Nolan and his writing partners so carefully created behind without at least trying to continue it?  Sure, a continuation of the Dark Knight-style Gotham might fall flat, but there has never been such a textured and well-conceived comic book movie setting.  In case you have not seen the movie your company made, let me just say that the pieces for a fourth movie are in place. Why waste the opening made by someone who has had a Midas touch for the franchise so far?

Though my suggestion would be to build on the groundwork laid by Nolan, I realize that I know little about the constraints placed on the production of another Bat-film. For all I know, the director may have an iron-clad contract that forbids the future use of his Gotham playground. Yet that doesn't mean that a reboot is your only option! Please do not think that the only way forward is to subject us to a retelling of Batman's origin story! Thanks to Nolan, an entire generation of non-comic book readers are familiar with the general concept of Batman--do not waste this opportunity! All it takes is a little smart scripting to remind an audience who Batman is and why he does what he does. It can be hammered out in the first couple of minutes, leaving the movie open to explore some other aspect of Bruce Wayne's war on crime. Just because Nolan and Bale are gone does not mean that people will refuse to understand a change in direction or a mix-up in casting.

But there is another reason to avoid a full-scale reboot. If you wont listen to artistic reasons, how about one that could threaten the purchase of your fifth summer home? The prominence of comic book related movies is not sustainable. I would even argue that, despite recent successes like The Avengers and Dark Knight Rise, we can already see the beginning of this current infatuation with comic book movies coming to an end. A market flooded with comic book movies involving more and more obscure characters coupled with increasingly quick reboots will only serve to limit public interest. While it is true that people will generally line up to see a Batman movie, I am sure that even the Caped Crusader is subject to diminishing returns. All you have to do is look at the reboot of another recent trilogy to see a potential problem. The recent Amazing Spider-man movie rebooted the trilogy headed by Sam Raimi to less than spectacular effect. While it is certainly no bomb, it is trailing the pace set by the original three movies by quite a bit. Of course, Amazing Spider-man had to contend with being the follow-up to the reviled Spider-man 3, but it still illustrates my point. Hollywood is flirting with a real case of reboot fatigue. Why subject one of your biggest franchises (not to mention the only currently successful DC superhero) to a potentially harmful reboot?

I'll wrap this up because I know you want to go try on that leisure suit made out of 100 dollar bills. All I am saying is that, while it may be scary to move forward without the guidance of Nolan, that does not mean that you have to go back to square one. They have given you a golden opportunity to build on the already spectacular trilogy. Even if you do not choose to do that, the success of the three movies has educated people enough so that you could eschew a reboot in favor of just telling a story. Regardless, the first thing I would do was find someone like David Fincher and start shipping him truckloads of money with little notes that say “Please direct the next Batman!”

Sincerely,

Trey