Warner Bros have announced an exciting reset for the DCEU, but the biggest win the revived studio could pull off is Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight 4. The mooted reboot of DC's movie timeline and a 10-year, MCU-like mega-plan taking advantage of key brand characters like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman is smart, but it comes at a cost. And it's a problem Warner Bros and the DCEU need a special solution to.
While the general reset idea is good, that's not the whole picture. Batgirl's distasteful cancelation was a publicity disaster, and the hangover of the Snyderverse still means any new plans will have to navigate a concentrated social media effort to restore what was lost. Then there's the issue of what remains of the DCEU - both the good, in terms of the properties WB will want to build on, like Black Adam, and the bad, like the mess of The Flash. Whether Warner Bros roll out a complete DCEU reboot or not is way more than a simple yes or no question.
Even if the DCEU reboot plan includes a decade-long build to Justice League movie events, as the MCU hints suggest, Warner Bros need an immediate PR win right now. They could have got that from Henry Cavill's Superman return, and an obvious attempt was made with the Joker 2 teaser release, but the best option for Warner Bros until they roll our the real DCEU reboot is Nolan's The Dark Knight Returns. No matter how complicated, the return of Christian Bale's Batman, even loosely adapting Frank Miller's seminal comics arc, would be the biggest example of unifying DC fan-service possible.
The Dark Knight Returns Is DC's Hail Mary Movie
Warner Bros have unveiled a new focus for DC movies with the promise of its own studio and a 10-year plan modelled on the MCU’s successes. That will take time and a significant portion of DC movie fans will have to be convinced (both Snyder fans and those of the current DCEU continuity), and WB need easy wins. There is clearly belief in the DC movie brand and a desire to apply greater reverence to it, with tentpole releases and spectacle at the top of the studio’s wish list. There’s also clearly room for continuity to exist outside of a so-called mainline DCEU, given the separation of The Batman, Black Adam and Shazam!, and Joker 2. Without a continuity reset and before the 10 year reset plan comes in to play, a Dark Knight Returns from Nolan would be exactly what Warner Bros needs.
Not only is it one of very few multi-billion dollar prospects that require very little to convince, but it would have a high prospect of being truly great. Christopher Nolan adapting the Dark Knight Returns, which The Dark Knight Rises actually does set up, the prospect of a Joker return, more of Christian Bale’s Batman, and the already established universe are all guarantees of huge interest. Put those together and it’s impossible not to be excited by what could be achieved. It’s the kind of restorative creative move that Warner Bros could take to the fandom bank, particularly as a means to justify the toxicity of cancelling already almost-complete smaller projects by Batgirl. Without an alternative, that looks increasingly problematic, but fandoms have a lot of forgiveness when you throw a big pile of fan-bait at them.
Everything Stopping WB Making The Dark Knight 4
The problem with Warner Bros making The Dark Knight 4 is chiefly that Christopher Nolan simply isn’t interested in making another sequel. As Christian Bale revealed, “Chris had always said to me that if we were fortunate to be able to make three we would stop. ‘Let’s walk away after that.'” The former Batman actor confirmed that Nolan wanted to avoid stretching too far and becoming overindulgent with a fourth movie. That sentiment would not be shared by those who believe that both John Blake and Bruce Wayne’s stories in that universe have further to go, but Nolan himself sees is differently. The handing of the torch to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Blake wasn’t meant to be the start of a chapter anyone would get to see, it was a symbolic end. Convincing Nolan to go back on that resolve would require a story that didn’t bloat the trilogy, that didn’t compromise the ending, and that offered enough creative freedom to make reservations a redundant.
On top of that, Nolan was very public about his relationship with Warner Bros after the former iteration of the studio planned to release so many movies on HBO Max in the wake of the pandemic closing cinemas. Nolan took aim squarely at HBO Max, calling it the worst streaming platform and maligning the loss of “the greatest movie studio”and Warner Bros’ financial self-destruction. While it would appear that Nolan was right (bar some releases that bucked the trend), bridges were clearly burned. Then again, it could be that the new Warner Bros hierarchy recognise the brand boost of convincing such a big detractor of their revived focus on Warner Bros as a film studio, of course. Either way, Nolan holds the cards.
Contrastingly, there is good news: a fourth movie has been discussed before, Christian Bale says he would return (if Nolan did too), and Nolan’s HBO Max criticisms are now shared by the company’s creative directors. The shared notion that movies should be a theatrical experience and the desire to give DC some more brand power look like a compelling case, but Nolan will never be an easy customer. For the sake of the DCEU and Warner Bros' plans to change the narrative about their biggest brand, there has to be hope that Nolan sees potential in The Dark Knight 4.