The Dark Knight

Earlier this year, our own Britt Hayes wrote a brief history of the times when modern filmmakers compared their movies to Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. It was a pretty revealing trend; as movie studios scrambled to give audiences the dark and gritty franchises they assumed audiences wanted, more and more filmmakers used Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises as a kind of fanboy secret handshake.

As you’ve seen in the trailers, Ben Affleck’s Batman makes an appearance in Suicide Squad, which makes sense given that A. It’s a DC Comics movie and B. It features The Joker — you can’t exactly have a movie starring Batman’s arch-nemesis without including Batman himself. But exactly how does the Dark Knight fit into David Ayer’s super-villain team-up?

In news to be filed under “Sure, okay,” Bryan Cranston has some interesting things to say about what we can expect from that new Power Rangers movie reboot — mostly that it’s “unrecognizable,” except not, and that it’s comparable to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, except also kind of not. But really, who’s to say?

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had quite the weekend — not only did it break the March opening record previously held by The Hunger Games, but with $424 million worldwide, Zack Snyder’s epic now boasts the highest opening weekend for a Warner Bros. superhero movie. All those negative reviews predictably had zero effect on audiences, who flocked to see the long-awaited showdown between the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel.

This squirrel thinks he's a bird.

Noted Comic-Con hater, actor and apparently now writer, Jesse Eisenberg, appeared on NBC’s Today to promote his upcoming book of short stories “Bream Gives Me Hiccups” and talk eventually turned to Batman vs. Superman. It was at this point that Eisenberg, who plays Lex Luthor in the upcoming superhero movie, assured us all that not only is Batman vs. Superman a “phenomenal” movie, but that’s it’s also a “very serious” movie. To which, the entire universe responded with a resounding, no freaking duh.

Rocksteady Studios is readying it's final Arkham adventure with Batman: Arkham Knight. In anticipation for the blockbuster's summer release, Sony's putting out a limited edition Batman: Arkham Knight PlayStation 4. Wouldn't it be nice if you could get that for free?

I'm going to be real with you, folks: even though we're looking down the barrel of 38 superhero movies over the next few years, the one that I'm looking forward to the most is easily Lego Batman, starring Will Arnett as the Caped and Blocky Crusader. It's been something I've been looking for ever since it was announced, but now, I've got an even bigger reason to want to see it, because we finally have a detail about the plot. According to a red carpet interview with Arnett, along with cowriters and directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the 2017 Batman movie will focus on answering one question: Can Batman be happy?

As ‘Batman’ goes, so goes comic-book movies. When Tim Burton turned the Dark Knight into a retro-gothic hero, Hollywood followed suit with a slew of heavily stylized pulp throwbacks. (See: ‘Dick Tracy,’ ‘The Phantom,’ ‘The Shadow,’ etc.) And when Christopher Nolan turned the Dark Knight into, well, ‘The Dark Knight,’ it sparked a wave of “grim and gritty” movies, with serious superheroes doing and saying serious things in outrageous spandex costumes that had been reimagined as biker gear or body armor. (See: ‘Man of Steel’ [Or maybe don’t.]) There’s been some pushback, but we’re really only now coming out of the trend toward ultra-serious, uber-dark comic-book movies.

When actors transform for a role, we take notice (and most of the time, so does that little golden statue named Oscar). Christian Bale in ‘The Machinist,’ Matthew McConaughey in ‘Dallas Buyers Club,’ Charlize Theron in ‘Monster,’ Christian Bale in the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy, etc. Jake Gyllenhaal recently joined the club when he dropped 25 pounds to play the sociopathic Lou Bloom in ‘Nightcrawler,’ and now he’s at it again with his incredible transformation for his next film, Antoine Fuqua’s ‘Southpaw.’

It seems like we’ve been teased forever when it comes to the Christopher Nolan’s third and final ‘Batman’ movie, but that’s all over this week as the official trailer for ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ has hit the web!