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Christian Bale Says Warner Bros Wanted To Do a Fourth Dark Knight Film

November 18, 2019 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
The Dark Knight Batman Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

It’s not a surprise given how much money the first three made, but Christian Bale has revealed that an offer was put to him and Christopher Nolan for a fourth Dark Knight film. Bale spoke with the Toronto Sun discussing his new film Ford v Ferrari and in the course of the interview was asked if he ever thought what he and Nolan were doing with the trilogy would “reinvent” the comic book film genre.

“We knew we had to reinvent it,” Bale said. “I literally had people laugh at me when I told them we were doing a new kind of Batman. I think that the reason it worked was first and foremost Chris’ take on it.”

He went on to add, “But also we never were arrogant to assume that we had an opportunity beyond one film at a time. That’s something that Chris always would talk about. He’d say, ‘This is it. We’re making one film. That’s all we’ve got.’ Then when they came and said, ‘You want to go make another?’ It was fantastic, but we still said, ‘This is it. We will not get another opportunity.’ Then they came and they said, ‘OK, let’s do a third one.'”

“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,’ he said,” Bale recounted. “Then when they inevitably came to us and said, ‘How about a No. 4?’ I said, ‘No. We have to stick to Chris’ dream, which was always to, hopefully, do a trilogy. Let’s not stretch too far and become overindulgent and go for a fourth.’ That’s why we, well Chris, stepped away. After that I was informed my services were no longer required (laughs).”

The Dark Knight films did reinvent the genre in some degree, moving it into a more grounded and realistic take that would come to play in films like Logan. Of course, Warner Bros. tried to partially replicate the gritty style without success in the DC Extended Universe, but they’ve sorted things out a bit since then.