With the release of “The Dark Knight” on DVD and Blu-ray today, the director Christopher Nolan did an interview with USA Today to promote it.  Of course with every interview comes the question if he’s doing Batman 3 and when will it be coming out?  For now, Nolan states that there are no immediate plans to get the ball rolling on Batman 3.  Nolan is nervous about doing another Batman so quickly because many third installments of franchises tend to stink (Superman 3, Godfather 3, etc). 

In the article, he says he’s jotting down notes and doing some outlines for a script right now, but there is nothing so far that makes him want to put it on film.  Nolan feels that doing a third film too quickly will result in the film being sub-par to the first two and that would be “disrespectful to the fans.”  These statements make me believe that Nolan is committed to doing a third film, but he wants to do it right.

Not many third films in a movie franchise are any good. Some of the few in my opinion that are good are: Return of the Jedi, Star Trek 3, Spider-Man 3, and X-Men 3. Yes, I liked all of those films. I know many comic fans were disappointed or hated Spider-man 3 and X-men 3 or hated the Ewoks in Jedi, but I liked all of these films. I will agree that none of these films can match up to their predecessors in their individual franchises. Interestingly enough, the second installment of all of those film franchises are rated the best by fans: Trek 2, Empire, etc. Will Batman 3 be as good or better than “Batman Begins” or “Dark Knight”? Who knows? We can only hope, but I do think Nolan will eventually come up with something and begin work on Batman 3. He just wants to get it right.

Nolan’s Batman films are so good and do justice to the character and to the medium of comic books and comic book films - “Dark Knight” in particular. Nolan has proven to me he can be trusted.  When I heard that Heath Ledger was going to be the Joker I was so disappointed, but I was glad to be proven wrong. On a side note, hopefully Heath’s name is announced this Thursday during the Golden Globe nominations and hopefully he wins. More importantly I hope he gets the Oscar. Hollywood will never truly respect the action/comic book genre, but at least fans will be able to point to Heath and his performance and say that there is the proof that these films can stand next to the great films and great performances of Oscar’s past.

So I trust we will see a third Batman sometime in the future. I like that Christopher Nolan wants to take his time on this one. If I were him, I would even make this the last one. The way “Dark Knight” ended with Batman being hunted, I almost feel that it’s a set up to Bruce dying in the third film. I would be okay with that if they introduced a replacement in the third film.

I know Nolan and Christian Bale don’t want to see Robin in the films, but maybe a grown up Nightwing would be interesting. If Dick Grayson does end up being Batman in the comics, why not in the films? So give Nolan some time to come up with a good script. Just be patient.