Tags : batman, Batman Beyond, Batman: Year 100, christian bale, Christopher Nolan, Comic Books
Batman Cinema: Looking Past Christian Bale
The new silver-screen reincarnations of Batman are fantastic – dark, gritty, and as realistic as such films can be. Christian Bale has proven to be the perfect actor to reincarnate a superhero that had, to many, “jumped the shark”, but he can’t be expected to reprise the role of Bruce Wayne forever, nor can director Christopher Nolan. In fact, Nolan is currently working on a non-Batman film, and is reportedly not yet signed onto the final film of his self-declared Batman trilogy.
What happens when Christian Bale is no longer interested in the role? Or Christopher Nolan grows tired of trying to out-do himself in cinebatic masterpieces? The time has come to start considering what future Batman might have on the silver screen, without Christian Bale and without Christopher Nolan. A new direction would obviously have to be taken, but where to go after such successes?
The answer lies, I believe, in the animated cartoon called “Batman Beyond” – a three season cartoon that was set approximately 20 years in the future (2039 C.E.), where Bruce Wayne has aged with the passage of time and Gotham has evolved into something entirely different. The overall story arc is that Terry McGinnis, a late-teens troublemaker in Gotham, takes over the Mantle of the Bat to fight the new waves of crime. As could be imagined, this is set in the future so hovercars and other sorts of futuristic pieces make appearances – the Batman mythos is no exception, as the Batsuit is updated to be even more clever and the Batmobile has become an aerial vehicle. Throughout all of this, Bruce Wayne is behind the scenes mentoring Terry, functioning as the new Batman’s “Oracle”, and coordinating coverups with the modern GCPD.
The individual episode plot lines are sometimes thin, but that’s to be expected from an episodic show catering to a younger audience – friends and foes from the past make appearances, or in some cases are reborn into something new, and the entire show has a tangible connection to the “present day” Batman canon. It is precisely this connection, in combination with the chronological gap, that makes it ripe for movie adaptation.
Batman’s future is an issue that has been looked at, written about, and redressed many times over the years, with one of the latest iterations being the Batman: Year 100 storyline. The Year 100 feeling is very dark and dystopian, sharing similarities with Batman Beyond’s future Gotham, but is far from perfect: for a successful movie adaptation, the two concepts should be merged. A future Gotham City with a younger, higher-tech Batman that is guided by an older, jaded Bruce Wayne has plenty of options available to it – including origin stories. However, it should be dark and gritty, just like the modern Batman movies, and not a candy-coated farcical future Batman… that’s just asking for failure.
Why, you might ask, does the Batman series need to jump into the future to continue without Christian Bale? The answer is simple: to many people at the moment, and probably for many years to come, Christian Bale is Batman. To move the series past Bale, successfully, requires the audience to believe in the new lead actor and forget the epic performances of the past – this can be easily achieved by jumping slightly into the future, rather than trying to replace the face of Batman and pretend nothing changed.
Additionally, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight have set audience expectations unbelievably high, and they can likely only be eclipsed once more – it is better to temporarily end the series/trilogy on a successful note that fans will love than to continue it until all the achievements have been destroyed. Once again, by moving the focus into the future while changing the very foundation of who and what it means to be Batman, these hurdles are neatly sidestepped as a new timeline is established, and there are no expectations. Such movies would not be sequels of The Dark Knight, but rather further chapters in the Batman cinematic storyline.
Hopeful directors, struggling writers, and movie studios take note: Christian Bale is a perfect Batman, but do not let that fool you into imagining these movies can continue forever. The series itself must continue, but in a way that makes sense to both audiences and box office receipts. Start looking into the many variations of a future Batman, how the many ideas may be merged, and how the silver screen Batman mythos can continue to grow and excite audiences for years to come.
Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.
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