It was only as recently as this past spring that rumors swirled of Christopher Nolan being asked to oversee “Justice League,” with Christian Bale to once again reprise Batman. But any notion of either being involved seemed like something of a longshot. Nolan has always stressed that his “The Dark Knight” trilogy stood alone from anything else Warner Bros. was cooking up with their DC properties and even last month, screenwriter David Goyer stressed, “It would be disingenuous to say Warner Bros doesn’t hope that [‘Man Of Steel‘] would be the starting point for a shared universe. And Zack has said that Bruce Wayne exists in this universe. It would be a different Bruce Wayne from Chris’ [Nolan] Dark Knight trilogy…” But now we have word straight from the actor himself.
Christian Bale has chatted with EW, he pours the cold water of reality against any faint remaining embers of hope that will once again play the billionaire playboy with a fondness for cowls. “Chris [Nolan] always said he wanted to make it one film at a time. And we ended up sitting there looking at each other, saying ‘We’re about to make the third.’ We never really knew if we were going to get to be there, but if that was how it was going to be, this was where it should end as well,” he said, adding: “It’s a torch that should be handed from one actor to another. So I enjoy looking forward to what somebody else will come up with.”
Bale goes on to stress that he’s not no talks for “Justice League,” and doesn’t really know anything about it other than they are making one. So let’s end the TDKR/”Justice League” tie-in rumors once and for all, right now, all right? Whatever WB is working on, it sounds like they will be starting all over, something that makes sense given the recent suggestions that they will be doing a reverse-Marvel — using the team up movie of “Justice League” to spin off a bunch of standalone character films.
So sorry nerds, the Bale as Batman era is over, so time to start your online petitions for who should take over.