ScriptFlags.com reported over the weekend that a ‘PR person’ involved with The Dark Knight Rises spilled to them that Chris Nolan’s third Batman movie will be based on the Prey storyline by Doug Moench that ran through issues #11-15 of Legends of The Dark Knight in the early 90′s.
Now putting aside the utter lunacy in reporting that a PR person would effectively make he/herself redundant by telling a website I have barely heard of the absolute scoop of the moment, the logic behind the movie being based on Prey isn’t all that insane.
Let’s look at the facts of Prey….
1) The comic is set in the early timeline of Batman’s career, a post-Year One storyline that fits in with the Nolan universe.
2) The plot of Prey fits in very well with how The Dark Knight ended, scarily so in fact. The Mayor Of Gotham assigns a new police task force to arrest Batman which is headed byGordon (who is secretly sabotaging the whole thing) and involves an ambitious, loose-cannon, overly thuggish young cop known as Sgt. Max Cort (who has the bug up his ass about Batman).
As we’ve mentioned already in relation to Harvey Bullock – a Melvin Purvis/Public Enemies-esque cop chasing the heels of The Caped Crusader and quickly gaining the trust of the Gotham Police Force over Gordon makes for a fitting role for the already cast Tom Hardy in the new movie. Using Cort (Or a fictional name) and this archetype character seems to fit, and we would expect that Nolan would drop the fact he becomes an avenging ninja known as ‘Night Scourge’ later in the storyline. Maybe he would become a bad guy… but nothing like.
The other two major characters in this storyline are mad psychiatrist Dr. Hugo Strange (who works closely with the police force to try and fathom out Batman’s identity but is clearly working on his own agenda as Bats is a personal fascination for him and he is the one who hypnotizes Cort to go evil) and frequent cameo’s from Catwoman – the latter of which might explain that female lead casting.
Now don’t get all excited and rush out and buy a copy of Batman Prey thinking it’ll be a page-by-page redo of that storyline. If Nolan is to use Prey (which remember – this isn’t a scoop… just pure speculation) it would probably just be an inspiration to the story like Year One was to Batman Begins or The Long Halloween to The Dark Knight.
The plot further thickens by Aussie actress Teresa Palmer, who was previously cast as Talia Al Ghul in that ill-advised JLA movie a few years back and who has told MovieWeb she is campaining to win the same role this time around.
Does she know something we don’t? Probably not – BUT – I like the idea of having Talia involved, possibly the one funding Strange’s research against Bats?
To be clear then – a PR person won’t know what’s going on (you can count the number of people who actually know the storyline of Batman 3 on the one hand, probably) and they certainly won’t go telling websites… but whomever has made the fairly logical stab in the dark (which is all it is) that Prey could be involved, isn’t the craziest of suggestions.
Want to write about the stuff you're passionate about and have your work read by an audience of over 10 million a month? Click here to become a contributor.
6 Comments
Basing The Dark Knight Rises on Prey sounds completely logical, and I wouldn’t be surprised to at least see Tom Hardy in the role of Hugo Strange, called in to track down Batman.
I read The Long Halloween earlier this year though, and I failed to see any big similarities between the graphic novel and The Dark Knight.
Other than the turning of Harvey Dent into Two-Face, and the desperation of the mob, I don’t understand how it was the source material.
I think if they were going with the Prey storyline, Hardy would be playing Cort or a like-minded character and not Strange.
Tom Hardy will be bullock and it will be based on prey, i don’t see him being hugo strange for any reason
That’s certainly where my mindset is right now. Then again, I was convinced for two years that Nolan would use The Riddler… so what do I know?
I’ll tell you what, they could do a lot worse, i’ve got that one and it’s a good story.
I have the Prey storyline and as this article states it fits in perfectly with how The Dark Knight ended. Plus, this storyline has a much more deep-seeded psychological tone to it, which we all Christopher Nolan is drawn to in his movies. As we all know, Nolan has a penchant for using the same actors over and over and I think the casting of Tom Hardy will be for a Max Cort style character rather than of Huge Strange. I did hear a rumour that Nolan was going to cast Joesph Gordon-Levitt (another case of Nolan using actors he’s worked with before). If this rumour turns out to be true, I think JGL would make a great Riddler (although I know Nolan has stated the Riddler won’t feature in this movie, but who knows, maybe he said that to throw people off). If JGL doesn’t play the Riddler, maybe he would be cast as Hugo Strange.
However the moviie turns out, Nolan has a chance to make a movie trilogy where every part is great, there are very few sequels out there that can say the same……….if anyone can think of one please let me know – - – Original star wars: jedi was bad, Indiana Jones trilogy – Last Crusade was too comical (although given the botch job they did on Crystal Skull it looks like a masterpiece in comparison), The Godfather – part 3 let it down, Mad Max – Part 3 let it down. I could go on but you get my point