Nolan Talks ‘Batman 3’

Batman, Batman, who’s got the Batman? The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan sure did, but according to a new interview with The L.A. Times, he might be hanging up the cape and cowl.

"There are two things to be said [in deciding whether or not to make a third Batman]," Nolan tells Geoff Boucher. "What’s the story? Is there a story that’s going to keep me emotionally invested for the couple of years that it will take to make another one? That’s the overriding question.

"On a more superficial level," he continues, "I have to ask the question: How many good third movies in a franchise can people name? [Laughs] At the same time, in taking on the second one [The Dark Knight], we had the challenge of trying to make a great second movie, and there haven’t been too many of those either. It’s all about the story really. If the story is there, everything is possible."

There are rumors all across the internet of what that story might be. Many suggest Catwoman, with Angelina Jolie as the most often discussed actress for the role, while certain news outlets such as the National Enquirer are convinced that Philip Seymour Hoffman and Johnny Depp are locked as the Penguin and Riddler respectively.

Nolan, on the other hand, doesn’t know much about what a sequel would entail. He admits that in filming The Dark Knight, his eyes weren’t set towards a third film, despite leaving The Joker alive.

"I only deal with one film at a time," states Nolan. "We’ve never attempted to save anything for a sequel or set up anything for a sequel. That seems improbable to some people because, particularly with Batman Begins, the film ended with a particular hook [with Jim Gordon showing Batman a Joker playing card announcing the arrival of a new villain in town]. But for me that was just about the excitement of people leaving the theater with the sense that now we have the character up and running. I wanted people to walk away with that sense in their head. You know, that he’s become the Batman in the movie. That’s why we had the title come up at the end, because it was Batman Begins, and it was all very specific to that. Then I got excited about seeing where that character would go. It was planned in advance, but it followed in that way."

But Nolan is thinking the same thing that the rest of us are: a sequel without Heath Ledger is almost unimaginable.

"Heath created the most extraordinary character that you would love to see 10 movies about," Nolan says. "That’s the bittersweet thing. It was incredible characterization. It is a bittersweet thing for all of us."

Still, there’s some hope that Nolan will return to Gotham City once again. Other than getting the story right, which shouldn’t be hard with the Nolan brothers and David Goyer in the Bat Cave, the director now has a taste for shooting films on grand IMAX scale, something he can’t do with his beloved smaller films.

"After Batman Begins I certainly felt like taking on something smaller, but one of the things I got such a thrill from on The Dark Knight was shooting on Imax and creating that massive scale and achieving that larger-than-life quality," Nolan says. "So that’s a lot of fun. I’m drawn in both directions now. So maybe what I need to do next is a very intimate, small story that happens to be photographed on a ridiculously large scale. Or vice versa [laughs]."

No matter what Nolan decides to do, it’s rather certain that Warner Bros. will make a follow up to their nearly $1 billion franchise. Fans will no doubt turn out in droves to see the second sequel, Nolan or nay, but we just can’t help fearing that a Nolan-less Batman 3 will go the way of the Schumacher.But Nolan is thinking the same thing that the rest of us are: a sequel without Heath Ledger is almost unimaginable.