1. Another Origin Story
At this point in mankind’s social evolution, if we were to take all the people in the world who didn’t know who Batman was and liquidate all but one, there wouldn’t be enough to sufficiently fill a bathtub for the remainder to bathe in the slimy pure shame. Everyone knows the equation: ($ x billions) + murdered parents ÷ bats x mental instability = vigilante justice (this is what mathematicians call ‘the Batman Principal’), so to waste another 120 minutes of our time explaining this story only marginally less popular than the Bible would be redundant.
Now Nolan did a good job in defining where the Batman began and Bruce ended, don’t get me wrong, but there are only so many times I can watch Thomas and Martha Wayne get gunned down and see Bruce take it out on the bones of Gothams’ underclass before I start to sympathise with the gunman.
Likewise, we don’t need to see how Joker got his smile, where Penguin outfits his umbrellas with enough ordinance to rival Deadpool, or discover what Mr Freeze does with his frozen bodily secretions. Just dump Bats in Arkham and let the good times roll. After all, haven’t the Waynes suffered enough without Hollywood capitalising on their deaths even further? We should all be ashamed.
Runners up for the worse things Warner could do to screw up the next instalment include:
- Give Batman a moustache.
- Cast Eddie Murphy as Batman…and the Joker in a dual role.
- Have Prince provide the soundtrack (again).
- Batman is a sparklepire.
- Tying it to Man of Steel.
- Bat-nipples. ‘Nuff said.
- After an entire movie of being awesome, the villain is revealed to be acting out of love.
- Dick Grayson is bitten by a radioactive robin and given the proportional aerodynamics and super-underwhelming strength of said bird.
- Adapting the story in which Alfred is killed in a rockslide (while riding a motor bike, ‘natch), only to be resurrected as a zombie who transforms victims into coffins. Even if Alfred were played by Jason Statham.
- Directed by contemporary Tim Burton, based on a script by Uwe Boll.