No matter your thoughts on “The Dark Knight Rises,” the third ‘Batman’ film from Christopher Nolan ended his trilogy in a pretty clear way, with Bruce Wayne retired and a young Robin in line to take over the mantle of Batman. But according to Christian Bale, Warner Bros. wasn’t convinced that the series should stop at a third film and asked about the possibility of a fourth.
However, according to the actor’s interview with the Toronto Sun, a fourth film was never a possibility because it had always been envisioned as a trilogy only. And without Nolan, it appears that WB definitely wasn’t interested in Bale.
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“Chris had always said to me that if we were fortunate to be able to make three we would stop,” said Bale. “‘Let’s walk away after that,’ he said. 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.’”
He added, “That’s why we, well Chris, stepped away. After that I was informed my services were no longer required (laughs).”
It makes sense why WB would want to do a fourth film in the Nolan series of ‘Batman’ films. While ‘Batman Begins’ was a big hit and kickstarted the franchise, “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises” both pulled in more than $1 billion at the box office. But without Nolan, there’s really no point in keeping the universe alive.
And we all know what happened next, with “Man of Steel” ushering in the DCEU and Zack Snyder’s vision for the superhero universe. It’s only been recently that WB has had a couple of non-Nolan $1 billion-grossing superhero films, with “Aquaman” last year and “Joker” this year.