11. Bruce Wayne's Journey Was - At Least In Part - Inspired By Teddy Roosevelt
Nope, that's not a joke: according to former president of DC Paul Levitz in the documentary Batman Unmasked (included on the Dark Knight Blu-ray), when Christopher Nolan first met with him to discuss the character of Bruce Wayne, Nolan told Levitz that
the key to understanding Waynes journey was understanding the 26th president of the United States. The parallels are actually kind of weird: just like Bruce Wayne, Teddy Roosevelts father was New Yorks great patrician benefactor; like Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt suffered terrible personal loss his mother and wife died on the same day and disappeared into the wilderness, perhaps to find himself, perhaps to
kill himself; and like Wayne, Roosevelt reforged himself during his time away, returning to New York as, in Levitzs words, this insane police commissioner bicycling through the city in the middle of the night. If only Nolan and Goyer had taken the inspiration all the way; now Im imagining a Batman movie where the dark knight pedals a bicycle all around his city of choice