After Darren Aronofsky discussed his plans for his failed “Batman” movie, you’d think we were done with controversial takes on the superhero, but you’d be wrong. While we wait for news on the latest (but certainly not last) reboot of the character in Matt Reeves‘ “The Batman” there’s another writer who wants to take a shot at the character, “True Detective” creator, Nic Pizzolatto.
One of the biggest appeals of Reeve’s take on Batman is the promise that he will focus on the “World’s Greatest Detective” part of the character, which hasn’t really been explored that much on screen. Well, instead of offering a similar approach, which wouldn’t be out of the question given the gritty story of “True Detective,” Pizzolatto wants to make Batman into a “human Saint.”
You heard that right. On an Instagram post, Pizzolatto wrote his pitch for what he calls “the only piece of geek culture I have any affinity for” and describes his thoughts on Batman, while saying he will work for free. He starts by saying he has problems with Batman’s number-one rule of no killing, saying it should be more than “killing makes me as bad as them,” which Pizzolatto calls “kindergarten bullshit” that never held any water at all. “Batman’s no-kill policy exists BECAUSE BATMAN’S REAL AND ETERNAL ENEMY IS DEATH. DEATH is his real enemy,” Pizzolatto writes in the post, describing his least favorite version of Batman as the tortured soul who can’t get over his parents’ death, which has been heavily explored in the movies. “Batman is the story of how one human Saint turned a life-defining tragedy into the pinnacle of human achievement and the single greatest humanitarian crusade the world has ever known.”
Pizzolatto ends his pitch by saying Batman’s money doesn’t matter to the story, “it actually adds to his heroism: his wealth means he could have done literally ANYTHING else than what he devotes his life to,” which doesn’t really make the part about the millionaire who decides to beat up mentally ill people instead of using his money to help any better. Pizzolatto ends by saying that Batman could “credibly defeat God” if he had enough time, and makes the case that Lex Luthor would be a greater threat to him, because Joker is simply “a frail, twiggy man who won’t stop smiling” and he can’t imagine any scenario where that takes more than ten minutes.