The recent news that The Dark Knight Rises has finished filming is both exciting and rather depressing.
Sure, we’re all looking forward to finally watching the next Dark Knight movie, but it’s also a downer because Rises is probably the last of a great series.
Of course, this isn’t exactly news, as we’ve known for some time that Rises is the final Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Batman flick.
And it’s being treated as such in some places, especially with Christian Bale telling the Philippines Daily Inquirer “that Batman era” is kaput. Once the film wrapped, Bale exclaimed, “that’s the last time I’m taking that cowl off.” (He did say playing the role was “enjoyable.”)
Since there’s barely any movie magazines left in America anymore, Empire Magazine in Britain just did a cover story on The Dark Knight, and Nolan and Tom Hardy’s comments on the second Dark Knight Rises villain, Bane, also got a lot of play all over the blog-o-sphere. Tom Hardy calls Bane “brutal, expedient delivery of brutality… a big dude. It’s just about carnage with Bane. He’s a wrecking ball.”
Christopher Nolan added, “With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we’re testing Batman both physically as well as mentally. Bane’s a very different kind of villain than Batman has faced before in our films. He’s a great sort of movie monster, but with an incredible brain, and that was a side of him that hadn’t been tapped before… So he is a worthy adversary.”
There’s been talk that after The Dark Knight Rises, which will be released on July 20, 2012, Warner Brothers will keep Batman going, but with new actors and a new helmer, much like Sony’s reboot of Spider-Man, also coming next summer.
Rebooting the previous Batman films was necessary because they had become god awful.
Now that Batman’s been redeemed, and hopefully the last film will make it a great trilogy, Warner Brothers should let the series end. Yes, there’s tons of money to rake in, but like Harry Potter, Batman should continue to make Warner Brothers a ton of dough for years to come without another movie.
Also, the bar’s set pretty high with the last film, so if this film is as good, or can even surpass it, why push your luck?
