Call Me, Christopher Nolan - We'll Chat

Other than turning over the reins of the highly successful Batman franchise to the guy who does these Lego trailers (he's called Keshen8 over on YouTube), there's a lot of ways to do another Batman film that could possibly live up to the mantle of The Dark Knight. Since there are literally scads of ideas floating around on the Internet - and since I'm one of the most devout disciples of the Caped Crusader in my circle of amigos - I thought I'd chip in my two cents. Call me, Christopher Nolan; we'll chat.

Shadow of the Bat

The third film would focus on the theme of loneliness. Here we'd take inspiration from Loeb's Dark Victory (as beautifully illustrated by Tim Sale) and from his Hush storyline (with Jim Lee's astounding artwork). The film would explore how Batman and Commissioner Gordon have become lonely without being able to depend on each other. Introduce a slimy deputy of the mayor who's on hand at the MCU to ensure that Gordon doesn't collaborate with Batman. Gordon's loneliness at work is compounded when his wife leaves him (something that happens in the comics), so we may even want to make this mayoral spy Sarah Essen, Gordon's eventual second wife.

The film's major contribution to the franchise would be the introduction of Robin, who needn't be as young as Loeb/Sale depict him but who would be ideally suited to represent and eventually cure Batman's loneliness. Dark Victory proved, despite Nolan's repeated avowals that Robin has no place in his franchise, that The Boy Wonder can and does work with a dark detective like Batman. We'd stick to Robin's main origin as Dick Grayson, with the acrobats but remove the Schumacher influence of placing Two-Face at the crime. Make it a last grab from the mob and Boss Zucco to keep Gotham before the freaks take over.

Enter the freaks - Catwoman and The Mad Hatter. We'll use Catwoman as Hush depicted her - a sensual love interest for Batman, who he mulls trusting since she's an anti-hero more than an outright villain. In Hush, Bruce even reveals his identity to Catwoman, but we don't need to go that far. The point of Catwoman being in the film would be to show that Batman needs someone he can trust - beyond just Alfred and Lucius, who have to be in the movie because I love Michael Caine & Morgan Freeman.

With The Mad Hatter, we'll depict him as a societal loner, a pedophile with an Alice complex who is the dark mirror of Batman's loneliness, muttering lines from the Lewis Carroll works (he thinks, for example, that Batman is the Jabberwock). At some point, The Mad Hatter kidnaps Gordon's daughter - or maybe the mayor's - thinking she's Alice, and the good guys have to turn to Batman, knowing that he's the hero they deserve. Using the child's mind that Robin has, Batman tracks The Mad Hatter down and apprehends him, reconciling himself with the city.

At the end of the film, a la the ending of Hush, Catwoman says something that happens to be a line from Alice - "Oh my claws and whiskers!" Batman, unsure that he can trust her, pushes her away, leaving her free to be a villain or ambiguous love interest in a future film. Robin joins Batman's team, and the Dynamic Duo is born.

Untitled Fourth Batman Project

I haven't come up with a name for my proposed fourth Batman film, mostly because The Dynamic Duo is too cartoonish, but I kind of like Streets of Gotham even though it suggests this is more about cops than the caped crusaders.

All I have on this one right now is Brittany Murphy for Harley Quinn. If she frees her Mistah J, he can don the Red Hood outfit and fall into a vat of acid, emerging as a different actor (Daniel Day-Lewis can be a renegade psycho). I'd love to see Johnny Depp as The Riddler, especially if he takes a cue from his Hush incarnation. The Riddler could kill Mr. Reese, because Batman's identity is a great riddle and only The Riddler deserves to know the answer - on his own. Or, we could utilize Paul Dini's characterization of The Riddler as a pop private investigator. Throw in Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin - he must own a nightclub and not actually be a penguin like Danny DeVito's interpretation - and/or Ben Kingsley as Mr. Freeze.

Call me, Christopher Nolan; we'll chat.