The Offenders: Iron Man, The Amazing Spider-Man, Man Of Steel, Godzilla, Alice In Wonderland, TMNT and many more. It's hard to decide which of the first two films in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy to attribute this next trend to. Although Batman Begins was first, it was The Dark Knight's unprecedented success that really caught people's attention. A necessary move after the door surfing of Batman And Robin, Batman Begins rebooted the franchise with a sense of grit lacking in the superhero genre up to that point. And as well as unwittingly providing the formula that the reboots of Spider-Man and Superman stuck to, Jon Favreau has stated he took a lot of inspiration for Iron Man's feel from Nolan. Talk about seismic shift. But it was The Dark Knight that really had an impact on non-spandex wearing cinema. Less a superhero film and more a crime drama that happened to have a superhero working his way through it, the movie created the illusion that the only way to make a big blockbuster is to go serious and realistic. Whenever people bemoan the current state of movies for taking itself serious (or are shocked when a Marvel movie dares to have fun), all roads lead back to Gotham. It's just a shame in all this one of the majors parts of the The Dark Knight Trilogy's success has been ignored; it feels so real because Nolan favoured practical effects, using limited CGI.
