Although I always acted as though I never liked the character, deep down I had an obsession with Batman. Like many, I began my fandom with Adam West and Burt Ward knocking out their most iconic nemeses on a submarine (because where else would you have a fight?). As we all probably know, the character has seen numerous iterations since the 60s show. After the Nolan era ended, I wondered for a few years where else Batman could go.
Nolan’s take on Batman will go down as one of the greats (if not the best in a lot of people’s minds). But the last five years have seen a major slump for the character, with movies such as BvS, Justice League, and the show Gotham. I love the darker tone for the character, but the latest adaptations have felt to me like bland imitations of much better movies. But over the last two years, I and my team, Red Fist Productions, have been developing a new series to hopefully give Batman fans something different.
If you are a fan of the BvS era, you may be thinking, “How callous of you to try to sell your product merely by saying that it’s better than these movies?” Or, you might be thinking, “Everything Batman has been done.” The latter is what we thought when we started, but my team and I started looking at the aspects of Batman that haven’t been developed in all seventy years of his onscreen history. Martial arts is one of Batman’s features that has never been shown in a live-action format. (Just in case you were set on checking out the 1940s serials, I thought I’d save you the suspense). Most of the time, Batman turns and throws a punch and they are done. Wouldn’t it be great if Batman was in a Raid-type scenario or a Jet Li-style movie? These what-ifs started the ball, which only kept moving thanks in no small part to my obsession with Eastern culture.
Most adaptations have inserted Batman into a unique universe: Beyond had a techno/futuristic aesthetic; Animated Series a 1940s Film Noir aesthetic. Others shaped a realistic world around Batman (Nolan’s Batman). What we’re doing is placing Batman into an Eastern-type aesthetic. And with that, we created a villain who is both adept at several forms of Martial Arts and clad in a Kabouki mask; his name is Nightmare. For more details on Nightmare, check back on Wednesday.