Now We Can All Ask Chris Nolan About Batman 3 Simultaneously
Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 6, 2008
It seems to be the movie related topic of the year: is Christopher Nolan going to come back and make another Batman movie? It is a question that remains unanswered even after almost a billion dollars worth of box office gross and the pleading of fans everywhere. And while we in the media will continue to camp out in Nolan’s bushes and attempt to trap him or anyone around him into admitting that he’s already got a plan for where to go next, it appears that fans will get the next shot.
Our good friend Loquaucious Muse over at All Things Fangirl attended a Blu-ray launch event this week held by Warner Bros. in honor of The Dark Knight’s release on Tuesday, December 9th. The director was on hand to answer questions as well as roll out some details on the Blu-ray exclusive features. Among the benefits for Blu-ray owners will be a BD-Live commentary hosted by Christopher Nolan. Details are as follows:
On December 18th, Chris Nolan is doing a live commentary with 100,000 Dark Knight Blu Ray owners. He will host the screening and answer questions as it goes on. With 100,000 people, it will most likely get a little crazy and who knows if Chris Nolan will tell me how exactly the Jim Gordan thing works (trying to keep this post spoiler free…), but it still sounds pretty damn cool to me. In Nolan’s words, “It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like…the potential of it is very exciting.” (Note: It had previously been announced that at some point Nolan would do a commentary, but only tonight was the date of this chat confirmed)
This is very similar to a chat held recently by Guillermo Del Toro with the release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, where fans were able to ask questions and talk shop with the director via their web-enabled Blu-ray players.
As part of the Q&A at the event, Nolan did comment on a third film, saying that he’s currently looking into where the story would go:
If he made a third film, it would be for no reason but the continuation of story. He is currently looking into where the story would go and if it needs to go there. He maintained that it’s very hard to make a movie of this scale (and specified he wasn’t asking for our sympathy, drawing a laugh from the crowd) – it’s two hard years and you gotta love it. One of his biggest fears is getting halfway through making a film and realizing it’s unnecessary and he doesn’t want to make it anymore. If there is a third story that needs to be told, there will be a third film, but nothing is set in stone or a given.
And finally, Nolan addressed some of the questions around the possibility of the DVD/Blu-ray release giving us more Dark Knight for our money, saying that there really isn’t a 3-hour director’s cut:
There is no 3 hour cut anywhere – no deleted scenes. He, John [Jonah] Nolan & David Goyer would cut scenes before they ever made it to the screen in what Nolan calls an “aggressive editorial approach.” Their criteria was that every scene needs three reasons to be in the film or it’s out. This made for a difficult time in the editing suite as every single scene was essential and could not be removed.
So for those who were looking for 6-hours of deleted scenes you’re out of luck. Though if I were to take a wild stab at it, I would say that you’ll still find plenty of reasons to love The Dark Knight on Blu-ray. Just a hunch.
The Dark Knight is on DVD and Blu-ray December 9, 2008. You can pre-order it over on Amazon.com. For a full report from the Blu-ray launch event, head over to All Things Fangirl.
Read more articles by Neil Miller
