10 Ways Batman & Robin Changed Batman Movie History

3. It Kick-Started The Nolanverse

Obviously, the biggest development in the wake of Batman & Robin was that Christopher Nolan was eventually hired - in 2003 after Joss Whedon's December 2002 pitch for an origin story was passed on - and the Batman universe was completely transformed.

Without Batman & Robin's flamboyance, there's no way Nolan's stripped down, humanist superhero would have been considered - it certainly wouldn't have been in the mid-90s, anyway. But Nolan and David S Goyer's script - which went darker without the gothic influences of Tim Burton's work - was deemed a better option than any of the other irons in the fire.

Nolan's take on Batman will forever exist in a bubble: it bears little resemblance to what came before it, and even the DCEU's take on the Dark Knight feels like a conscious rail against what he created. But then that's the price of genius: anyone seeking to emulate would look foolish in direct comparison.