6. The Films Were Never Rushed
In today's world of immediate gratification, films are too often rushed to the screen especially in the case of films in a series. This usually results in a case of diminishing returns, with each successive film in the series being a lower quality clone of the previous. The most recent example of this is the Saw films, which started with a promising original in 2004, but was followed by six straight creative failures that were released annually from 2005 to 2010 always in time for Halloween. When Miranda Tate turned on Batman in The Dark Knight Rises revealing herself as Talia Al Ghul, she told him that it is the slow knife, the one that waits years, that cuts the deepest. This mantra was employed throughout The Dark Knight Trilogy with Batman Begins premiering in June 2005 and The Dark Knight Rises opening in July 2012. Not only did they take their time, but Christopher Nolan and his crew also made two separate films - The Prestige and Inception - during the lifespan of The Dark Knight Trilogy which is definitely an unusual practice for such a big franchise. The time during Inception would prove particularly effective as it allowed Nolan to begin unofficially auditioning for roles in The Dark Knight Rises. He was ultimately able to offer roles to Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The first of Michael Bay's Transformers films debuted a full two years after Batman Begins and still completed its trilogy a year before The Dark Knight Trilogy ended, albeit to questionable results.