I Hate To Say It, But Batman Is Ruining DC Movies

1. “This is how MY Batman would be.”

2. Everything else.

Since 1989, we haven’t had a director take on a Batman movie without establishing some kind of weird ownership over the character. Whether it was Tim Burton or Joel Schumacher or Nolan, every filmmaker who gets the task of filling our screens with bat stuff puts their own spin on it which makes it absolutely separate from any other DC film. Even Zack Snyder, who was a main creative force in the DCEU, couldn’t be bothered to wonder how he could tonally mesh Batman with other characters. Instead he just shoved Batman in there and hoped that the rest of the movies would work themselves out.

And now, we’re getting not only another Batman standalone film that is wholly unrelated to the events of the DCEU, but also a Joker origin movie that is similarly separate. Why? Because it seems that trying to fit these versions of Batman and various Batman-related characters into the established DCEU would be too much of an ordeal, so fuck it. “Go do your own special revolutionary Batman thing over there, while we do our own special revolutionary Batman thing over here, and in the end we can, well, just make more special revolutionary Batman things. Forever.” Audiences just love it when they become interested in a character, only to find out that nope, while this character is still the same character, it’s not THAT character. So they can just deal. And don’t give me that “No, it’s definitely part of the DCEU, it’s just got no connections to it” explanation. That’s like saying, “Oh yeah, I’m coming to your birthday party. Wouldn’t miss it. However, I AM just gonna be on my phone the whole time.”

It always sucks to hear about directors being pushed off of movies because their visions aren’t gelling with the course that the corporate overlords desire. It sucked when Edgar Wright was taken off of Ant-Man, and it sucked when Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were taken off of Han Solo. But you need that some times. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that Warner Bros. needs to fire the directors of the new Batman and Joker movies. I’m saying that there are SO. MANY. VERSIONS. of those characters that the company is way past due to step in and say, “It’s time to figure out what the hell these characters actually are so that fans at least have a general idea of what they’re paying for at the theater.” It’s one of the rare times where I think annoying corporate oversight needs to be in place just to rope in the chaos. To protect the character from a dozen directors, each with their own vision, which is what created the mess we’re seeing now. Campy Batman, colorful batman, leather-clad action hero Batman, nipple suit Batman, gritty Batman, even grittier Batman, fun Batman, brooding Batman, gun-toting Batman, ninja Batman — WHAT THE HELL IS HE?!

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