Batman 4: Christopher Nolan Gives His Final Answer
"Are you making 'Batman 4'? must be a question Christopher Nolan is getting pretty tired of hearing in the run-up to the release of 'The Dark Knight Rises' on July 27th. How many times does the man have to tell us "No!" before it finally sinks in that he's done with the Caped Crusader?
When asked about the possibility of him directing a third sequel in his incredibly popular blockbuster series, Nolan bluntly replied "No." In fact, Nolan made it clear that sequels were never part of his plan in the first place when he made 'Batman Begins' back in 2005: "We never had a specific trajectory. I wanted to put everything into making one great film, I didn’t want to hold anything back."
So, in short: no 'Batman 4' for Nolan, so stop asking!
However, the real story here may be Nolan's comments that followed, where he fired yet another round of shots in the war between digital and traditional filmmaking. He made it clear that he thinks digital cameras and projection are "devaluing of what we do as filmmakers." The normally soft spoken Nolan really cut loose after that, saying "I don’t want to be the R and D department. I don’t have any interest in the research into electronics. What interests me is to use the best technology and that is film...It’s like filmmakers are being encouraged to buy cameras like we are buying iPods.”
Nolan is admirably old school, preferring IMAX projection and and 65mm film stock to cheap and easy digital cameras and 3D. He thinks that digital technology is not only going to harm the craft of filmmaking, but destroy the filmgoing experience for the audience. “You really are kind of sitting in your living room now watching moves," he said, “[it's] is reducing most theaters to showing TV commercials." Nolan admitted that he'd consider a switch to digital if it ever started to look as good as film but noted that the phasing out of film is "being forced in a consumer way" and that "It's not about what is going to give me the best images."
So there you have it: Christopher Nolan is not making 'Batman 4' so stop asking him. However, you should ask him about digital filmmaking, because he'll give you an earful!
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