1. Choosing The Right Director / Screenwriter
The king is dead... long live the king. The most important decision Warner Bros must make in the next 12 months is over the hiring of a new director and screenwriting team. Whilst it might sound easy on paper just to hire a talented helmer, the task is actually much tougher than it was just over a decade ago when they originally hired up-and-coming British thriller filmmaker Chris Nolan. He was an obscure name in the mainstream, notable for his narrative bending thriller Memento and for his atmospheric remake of Insomnia but he was not a household name and most Batman fans wouldn't be able to pick him out a line-up back in 2003. When Warner Bros first hired Nolan, he was seen as a low-risk appointment. They had already turned down an extremely dark pitch from Indie filmmaker Darren Aronofsky for a Frank Miller approved adaptation of Batman: Year One that would work as a reboot to the character and they weren't really in the business of making more movies with the character. The success of Sony and Fox's adaptations of Marvel properties Spider-Man and X-Men brought confidence back to Warner Bros that there could be an audience for The Dark Knight once again. They gambled a $150 million budget with Nolan, thinking he might just deliver a moderate success and that the comics fanbase was big enough that they would at least get their money back if it didn't work out... but Nolan delivered far more than they could have ever hoped. Although Batman Begins grossed less than $400 million in its overall run (note: The Dark Knight Rises is passing that already) it was a huge success and it restarted a dead franchise and a box office busting sequel would emerge just three years later. Now WB's task of hiring a new director is much harder. Firstly they have to try and top Nolan's trilogy, which to some might seem an impossible task. Plus, Batman is no longer a dormant franchise that has been rotting for eight years, it is instead the biggest property Warner Bros currently has. Any sniff of who they are interested in hiring to replace Nolan from this point will be all over the internet with hundreds of thousands of fanboys voicing their pleasure and disgust. Back in 2003, it was only a small internet following who were clamouring for what the nest Batman movie should be and at that point, they would have probably been satisfied with anything. Now, the Batman audience each all have a different opinion on what they want to see... and guess what? Everyone's is different. What I want to see in the next Batman movie is probably not what you want to see, etc, etc. But what is important is that Warner Bros hire the right team to take the character forward. Warner Bros MUST hire someone who understands Batman, is a fan of the character and is willing to read and consider the source material in the way Nolan did to craft his vision of the character. That person must also have the sense to hire a comics expert screenwriter like David Goyer, who Nolan invited to write the now legendary screenplay for Batman Begins and who together crafted the overall outline of this trilogy. And thirdly, the director they choose must be enthusiastic and talented and be willing to be in it for the long haul. Warner Bros should draw up a shortlist of several hungry, young directors - the likes of Ben Affleck (whose excellent first two films Gone Baby Gone and The Town at WB must make him a contender with his growing maturity behind the camera, his natural ability to make an exhilarating contemporary crime picture, his relationship with WB and love of comic books), Zack Snyder (possibly the favourite for the job seeing as though Nolan hired him for Man of Steel), Duncan Jones, Jon Favreau, Matthew Vaughn, Wally Pfister (who was Nolan's DP and is now prepping his directorial debut and has clearly learned from the best) and see what all their individual takes are for bringing this universe forward. They must also speak to screenwriters David Goyer and Jonathan Nolan... clearly their influence on the Nolan movies should not be under-stated. They are the big Batman fans, the pair who know the comics inside out and will be able to find the story that can unlock the mystery of how to make a sequel to The Dark Knight Rises. Hell, they already did it once with the sequel to The Dark Knight...