Christopher Nolan Was “On The Fence” About Making The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan and his brother and collaborator Jonathan (Jonah to his friends) are officially Hollywood power players, with the latter winning Best Director at this year’s Academy Awards. It’s a far cry and 20-year plus journey on where they started, but their trajectory might not have been the same without The Dark Knight Trilogy. After the abysmal reaction to 1997’s Batman and Robin, Warner Bros. rebooted the Batman franchise and was helmed by then-up-and-comer Christopher Nolan. However, he almost didn’t take the job initially.
Nolan’s trilogy became the benchmark of DC Comics movies and put the budding director on Hollywood’s A-list. During a recent interview on the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepard, Jonathan Nolan said that it took some serious coaxing to get his brother to return for The Dark Knight after the success of Batman Begins.
“Chris was on the fence about making another one,” Jonathan said, noting that Chris went straight from Batman Begins into the production of The Prestige, also starring Batman Begins’ Christian Bale and Michael Caine. “He didn’t want to become a superhero movie director.”