16. Mr. Hughes?
Nolans made no secret of the fact that the Bruce Wayne we see at the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises an eccentric recluse, wandering around a sealed wing of Wayne Manor in a bathrobe, letting himself go was inspired by the infamous antics of
Howard Hughes during the final stages of his life, a.k.a. his Las Vegas period. The connection goes deeper than Nolan simply tipping his hat to history, though; before he jumped aboard the Batman franchise, Nolan had spent a lot of time working on
a biopic of Howard Hughes that wouldve starred Jim Carrey, only to see it derailed by the release of Martin Scorseses Hughes movie, The Aviator. Luckily, Nolan joked, I managed to find another wealthy, quirky character who's orphaned at a young age.
15. The Dark Knight Returns
Among its several central comic book sourcesNo Mans Land, Dark Victory, Knightfall one of the key sources of inspiration for The Dark Knight Rises was, clearly, Frank Millers seminal 1984 work The Dark Knight Returns. Like The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Rises opens with a Bruce Wayne who has been retired for some time following great personal loss, but who is dissatisfied and itching for a chance to get back in the Batsuit; like The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Rises involves a sequence where Batman underestimates a much younger opponent (the Mutant Leader in Millers story; Bane in Nolans), trying to match him blow for blow and getting his butt kicked; like The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Rises is largely concerned with the
idea of Batman, as a symbol and concept that the people of Gotham can either reject or rally behind. The Dark Knight Rises even lifts a line or two directly from The Dark Knight Returns an older Gotham cop telling his rookie partner that hes in for a show tonight is a direct steal from Miller.