As we all know, The Dark Knight Rises is set to be the last of Christopher Nolan’s directorial outings on the rebooted Batman franchise. Shooting will begin shortly, aiming for a summer 2012 release date. Bizarrely and incredulously, Warner Bros seem to already be eyeing what will happen to their beloved franchise, once Nolan steps down, with a fresh reboot possibly in mind almost immediately afterwards.

Jeff Robinov, the current head of Warner Bros, is quoted as saying:-

“We have the third Batman, but then we’ll have to reinvent Batman… Chris Nolan and [producing partner and wife] Emma Thomas will be producing it, so it will be a conversation with them about what the next phase is.”

Obviously Nolan can’t and won’t remain with the franchise forever. He has other projects in mind, other furrows to plough. Although it might in theory seem to bode well to keep him on in some sort of producer/creative control capacity, the reality is that any new film would have to be some sort of stylistic departure, otherwise it winds up coming across as a poor imitation and suffers accordingly.

Batman has always been a cash-cow for WB and no-one can blame them for keeping one eye on the future of the franchise, but they must tread very carefully. The gothicism and German Expressionism of Burton gave way to the eyeball-frazzling neon nightmare of Schumacher, with Bat-nipples and built-in ice skates putting the franchise into an eight year coma. Patience does not seem to be a strong suit for studio heads, but caution must prevail, lest the franchise be tarnished.

Source: LA Times via CinemaBlend.

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Dave has been writing for HeyUGuys since mid-2010 and has found them to be the most intelligent, friendly, erudite and insightful bunch of film fans you could hope to work with. He's gone from ham-fisted attempts at writing the news to interviewing Lawrence Bender, Renny Harlin and Julian Glover, to writing articles about things he loves that people have actually read. He has fairly broad tastes as far as films are concerned, though given the choice he's likely to go for Con Air over Battleship Potemkin most days. He's pretty sure that 2001: A Space Odyssey is the most overrated mess in cinematic history.