| Must I really spell it out for them? No! No! No! |
Warner Bros. may be looking to replicate the success of Marvel’s The Avengers with their own big screen DC Comics team-up Justice League, but they’ll have to do so without the golden touch of Christopher Nolan. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Nolan once again reaffirmed his promise that The Dark Knight Rises would bring the curtain down on his epic Batman tale: “We’re finished with all we’re doing with Batman. This is the end of our take on this character… I’ve got no plans to do anything more, and certainly, no involvement with any Justice League project.”
In the same interview, Nolan also seems to distance himself from any involvement with the planned Batman reboot post-The Dark Knight Rises, despite the fact that Warner Bros. president Jeff Robinov stated earlier this year that he expected Nolan and his wife Emma Thomas to stay on as producers. EW’s article claims that Nolan “does not intend to get involved with any future solo Batman films when distributor Warner Bros… decides the time is right to launch a new take on the masked vigilante” and Nolan is quoted as saying…
“Batman will outlive us all, and our interpretation was ours. Obviously, we consider it definitive and kind of finished. The great thing about Batman is he lives on for future generations to reinterpret, and obviously, Warners will have to decide in the future what they’re going to do with him… we’ve had our say on the character.”
Nolan’s rejection of the Justice League movie comes hot on the heels of Christian Bale’s own non-committal response to a question about his own involvement in the proposed DC Comics ensemble, having told WGN TV that: “I’ve not spoken with anybody about [Justice League]. I don’t know if that’s in keeping with Chris’s world of Batman.”
So, while Nolan won’t be completely finished with the DC Universe after The Dark Knight Rises, it seems the most that fans can look forward to at this moment in time is his limited involvement as producer on Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot Man of Steel. Still, given everything Nolan has done for WB with his Dark Knight trilogy, you’d have to imagine the studio will be keen to consult with him in some fashion… after all, if there’s one way to gain fan support for a Justice League movie, it’ll be the Chris Nolan seal of approval.
With Christopher Nolan apparently out of the equation, who would you like to see brought in to develop the Justice League feature?
Holy Franchise, Batman! – Available now via Amazon.
Originally published July 10, 2012. Updated November 29, 2022.
