‘Dark Knight’ Boss Christopher Nolan Has An Excellent Take On Why DC Is Making So Many Bad Movies

Warner Bros.


Remember The Dark Knight trilogy starring Christian Bale? You know, back when DC Comics actually made some REALLY good movies? Well, the man behind much of the success of those three films, Christopher Nolan, has a pretty darn good explanation for why DC Comics is struggling to make good movies now.

Batman Begins, the first movie in the trilogy, came out in 2005. It received an 85% overall approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes, received an Academy Award nomination and won three BAFTAs.

Then we had to wait three full years for film number two: The Dark Knight. That film received eight Academy Award nominations, won two of them, and raked in over $1 billion in revenue worldwide.

The final film in the trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, then came out FOUR years later in 2012. It, surprisingly was not nominated for any Oscars, but that didn’t stop it from becoming the 19th-highest-grossing film (currently) of all time with over $1.08 billion in revenue.

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Which all means that we know DC has the ability to make very good superhero movies, they just… haven’t. (See Batman V. Superman, Suicide Squad, Justice League, etc.) being

So this begs the question: why are they having such a hard time these days?

Christopher Nolan, thinks he knows why, and it has a lot to with him having the “luxury of time” to make his films, he explained at a recent BAFTA event in London.

Deadline reports…

He noted that Batman Begins, which starred Christian Bale in the title role, launched in 2005, while The Dark Knight, which featured Heath Ledger, launched in 2008 and The Dark Knight Rises launched in 2012.

“That’s a privilege and a luxury that filmmakers aren’t afforded anymore. I think it was the last time that anyone was able to say to a studio, ‘I might do another one, but it will be four years’. There’s too much pressure on release schedules to let people do that now but creatively it’s a huge advantage. We had the privilege and advantage to develop as people and as storytellers and then bring the family back together,” he said.

That…actually makes some sense. Although it kind of short-sells the importance of a REALLY good director, like him, helming the films. (See Wonder Woman.)

Then again, as io9 points out, Nolan had so much to to prepare for each movie, he was even able to make other big films in between each of the three Batman flicks, The Prestige and Inception.

He is right about time in another way too. Since 2012, when The Dark Knight Rises was released and seven years after the first movie, DC has put out five movies in five years, with Ben Affleck’s Batman showing up the same number of times as Christian Bale’s version, but over only a year-and-a-half instead of seven years.

Don’t know about you, but that’s way too much Batfleck for my taste.

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Before settling down at BroBible, Douglas Charles, a graduate of the University of Iowa (Go Hawks), owned and operated a wide assortment of websites. He is also one of the few White Sox fans out there and thinks Michael Jordan is, hands down, the GOAT.