The L.A. Times has pulled off what no journalist to date has been able to. They not only caught up with Christopher Nolan, but they got him to open up for the first time about Batman 3 and a reboot of the Superman franchise.
Nolan’s remarks to the paper offer the first confirmation that Batman 3 is, in fact, underway. He and David Goyer have devised a story that Jonathan Nolan, Christopher’s brother, is currently turning into a screenplay.
The success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, which have earned well over $1 billion combined in ticket receipts, might indicate the Batman franchise will continue endlessly. Nolan, however, has a much different plan in place.
“Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film an great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story,” he said. “And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story.”
Does this mean Batman 3 will be the final Batman film? It sounds like it will in the Nolan-verse, though Warner Bros. could potentially continue or spin-off the franchise if the third entry brings in the big bucks. And it should.
“I’m very excited about the end of the film, the conclusion, and what we’ve done with the characters,” Nolan continued. “My brother has come up with some pretty exciting stuff. Unlike the comics, these thing don’t go on forever in film and viewing it as a story with an end is useful. Viewing it as an ending, that sets you very much on the right track about the appropriate conclusion and the essence of what tale we’re telling. And it hearkens back to that priority of trying to find the reality in these fantastic stories. That’s what we do.”
Rumors speculating Nolan’s involvement in Warner Bros. reboot of Superman would connect to Batman’s universe were quickly debunked by the director. “They have nothing to do with each other,” he exclaimed, emphasizing the idea that each superhero exists in a world where they are the only superhero.
As for which characters might appear in Batman 3, Nolan promises all the main characters from the first two films would return. While he refused to offer hints as to which villain or villains Batman would square off against, he did promise that Mr. Freeze would not be one of them. Cross him off the list of candidates.
Read the entire piece at the L.A. Times.
