3. Focus On One Villain At A Time
One of the reasons that the original Batman from 1989 was such a great movie is that the story had a tight focus on just two primary characters; The Hero and The Villain. As the sole villain of the pieces, The Joker had enough screen time to be developed into a great foe with plenty of depth and detail. Every movie in the franchise since then has had at least two villains having to split screen time, and the latest one crammed in three. Even worse Batman Triumphant was rumored to include Scarecrow, Harley Quinn, The Mad Hatter and a possible return of the Joker which would have upped the number to 4 villains! Having that many characters to juggle onscreen usually results in at least a few of them being weak and under developed. For example look at Bane in the last movie. One of the most intriguing and fresh villains to come along in recent years was reduced to a growling henchman who (aside from the costume) wasn't all that different from the numerous thugs working as underlings for Mr. Freeze. For the next movie, the creators need to settle on one bad guy and get the best mileage out of him that they can. Scarecrow by himself is more than enough to make a Batman movie work.