The superhero movie Christopher Nolan called “extraordinary”
While the earlier films of Christopher Nolan drew acclaim and showed cinema fans that a seriously talented director had arrived to Hollywood, it wasn’t until his The Dark Knight trilogy began in 2005 that Nolan really cemented himself as a genuine blockbuster filmmaker.
The trilogy is widely considered to have some of the greatest movies ever made featuring the Caped Crusader, played famously in those instances by Christian Bale, also featuring the likes of Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy and Michael Caine, to name but a few of its high-profile stars.
Of course, there had been several Batman movies come out that preceded Nolan’s efforts, and though many consider Nolan’s to be the best, the director himself still holds a respect for the previous iterations of Gotham City. Nolan looks to have been particularly impressed by Tim Burton’s Batman efforts of the late 1980s and the 1990s.
He once told Ain’t It Cool News: “I think what Tim Burton did with Batman was absolutely extraordinary, but it was very idiosyncratic. It’s really kind of a mad studio film, really.” Burton’s first Batman effort was 1989’s Batman starring Michael Keaton in the lead role opposite Jack Nicholson as The Joker.
“If you look at what Tim Burton did, it’s specifically about a world that was created that Batman fits into,” Nolan also told Verbicide. “It’s this great gothic vision that’s very consistent, and consistent with the character of Batman.”
He added: “What I felt I hadn’t seen, especially in comics, was an ordinary world in which we could be living in Gotham. When a Gothamite sees Batman, he’s as extraordinary as he would be in our world.” So even Nolan can appreciate the Batman efforts that came before his excellent visions.
Burton followed up on the 1989 original movie with the 1992 sequel Batman Returns, again with Keaton in the lead role. 1995’s Batman Forever was produced by Burton but had Joel Schumacher on directing duty, and Val Kilmer replaced Keaton as Batman.
But it’s those two original Burton movies that seem to hold the key to Nolan’s heart. He said, “You have to start going, ‘OK, why is he wearing this costume, and how did he get the costume? How do he and Alfred have this Batcave?’ We started to enjoy coming up with the answers to those questions. It became a fun part of our creative process; some of it became the candy of the movie.”
