Will A Comic Book Movie EVER Beat The Dark Knight?

1. What Comes Next

Comic books are the biggest genre in Hollywood today, so there'll be plenty more attempts that come along to try and steal The Dark Knight's crown, including another Batman film (from Matt Reeves), a Wonder Woman sequel, Captain Marvel, Aquaman, Avengers 4, and about a million movies involving some variation of the Joker. But can they beat The Dark Knight?

Some of them have, perhaps, better all-around casts, but it's impossible to think we'll ever see a villainous tour-de-chaos of the kind delivered by Ledger in this movie. Some will have great directors, from the Russos to Patty Jenkins to the aforementioned Reeves, but none who you'd say are really at the same level of blockbuster mastery as Nolan - and even he couldn't top this movie with its sequel.

The Dark Knight succeeds in being a great comic book movie by simply focusing on being a great movie. It's the middle entry of a trilogy, but it largely stands alone.

It's difficult, then, in a climate where shared universes are key, to imagine something coming along and genuinely bettering it, but perhaps it doesn't even need to be beaten, it just needs something else to come along and once again redefine what comic book movies can or should be. That, after all, is The Dark Knight's biggest legacy, and one that still hasn't been fully embraced just yet.

It needs to be something that embraces its comic side enough, but without trading off on bigger themes; it needs to offer up thrills, but without being either too lightweight or trying to be too dark, and above all show us something that we'd never, ever have expected from a comic book movie and manages to transcend the form, allowing a genius creator to operate uninhibited. If it can do that, it may or may not be *better* than The Dark Knight, but it'll at least be worthy of the conversation.

Share your own thoguhts and memories of The Dark Knight as it turns 10 down in the comments section below!