Christopher Nolan Talks About The Advantages of Making His DARK KNIGHT Trilogy When He Did

Before Marvel Studios kickstarted a new superhero movie revolution with Iron Man, Christopher Nolan was out doing amazing things with Batman. The Dark Knight trilogy that he directed is an incredible feat. He took superhero films to a new level and set a high bar that DC still has yet to reach with the more recent DC films that they’ve made.

Nolan had the opportunity to make those Batman films at the right time. It was a perfect storm of circumstances for him where he was given creative freedom and there were less commercial pressures to worry about. The filmmaker recently talked about the advantages he had with making these films at the time that he did during a virtual discussion promoting Tom Shore's book The Nolan Variations:

“It was the right moment in time for the telling of the story I wanted to do. The origin story for Batman had never been addressed in film or fully in the comics. There wasn’t a particular or exact thing we had to follow. There was a gap in movie history. Superman had a very definitive telling with Christopher Reeve and Richard Donner. The version of that with Batman had never been told. We were looking at this telling of an extraordinary figure in an ordinary world.”

Nolan also talked about how this, and the fact that how with no pre-existing template to follow and with comic book films not an established genre yet, allowed for “creative freedom” and the opportunity to “show the studio this is what it can be.”

The director went on to explain that “the other advantage we had was back then you could take more time between sequels. When we did Batman Begins, we didn’t know we’d do one and it took three years to do it and then four years before the next one. We had the luxury of time. It didn’t feel like a machine, an engine of commerce for the studio. As the genre becomes so successful, those pressures become greater and greater. It was the right time.”

Things definitely worked out in Nolan’s favor. There’s no way he would have had those advantages today in trying to make a Batman film. Nolan was just at the right place at the right time to make his Batman trilogy.

Via: Indie Wire