Following the release of The Dark Knight Rises last month, Warner Bros. now finds itself in a difficult position with regards to the future of the lucrative Batman franchise. With Christopher Nolan categorically confirming that his time in Gotham is over, it seems the studio has three options: 1) continue Nolan’s Dark Knight series, sans Nolan; 2) reboot the series, if they can find a director brave enough to step into his shoes; or 3) use the long-rumoured Justice League movie to introduce a new Batman, and hope that audiences are too wrapped up in all the DC superheroism to take any notice.
Well, according to Batman-on-Film, it would appear that Warner Bros. has set its sights on the latter as the lesser of three evils:
“It’s looking as a live-action Justice League film – the one currently being penned by Will Beall for Warner Bros. – just might be the studio’s first big, DC Comics-based tent pole movie after 2013’s Man of Steel. This JL film would, possibly, hit theaters Summer 2015,” states Jett over at BoF. “[The Batman] reboot will come after the JL film, not before. Therefore, the new cinematic Batman will be introduced in the JL film as opposed to a solo film. This would, according to my industry ‘FOBOF,’ assure the new Batman film series will be part of a ‘DC Cinematic Universe.’”
And while we’re on the subject of Justice League, Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand) has become the latest name to be rumoured as a possible contender for the superhero team-up, joining the recently mentioned Lana and Andy Wachowski (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas). As we already know, both Nolan and Ben Affleck (The Town, Argo) have already passed on the opportunity, but according to the Superman Super Site, Warner Bros. “is very pleased with the work that Brett [Ratner] has done as a producer and director on past projects [and] they are now very interested in seeing what he can do with helping finally bring this group of iconic superheroes to the big screen.”
I don’t know about Warner Bros., but I wasn’t impressed with the results the last time Ratner helped bring a group of iconic superheroes to the big screen. Fortunately, when it comes to possible directors for Justice League, it seems we’ve entered the phase commonly referred to as “random, baseless speculation,” so expect to hear plenty more wild rumours about various filmmakers being on Warner’s radar until we get an official announcement from the studio.
Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen – Available now via Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
Originally published August 29, 2012. Updated November 6, 2019.
