On July 18, 2008, The Dark Knight was released nationwide across 4,366 theaters on an estimated 9,200 screens. Warner Bros. sought to give their Batman sequel maximum exposure as the hype had been building considerably since the film was first announced. From casting choices that made fanboys go crazy to the real-life tragic passing of one of the film’s stars, all eyes were on director Christopher Nolan and The Dark Knight.
What became almost instantly known following the film’s opening weekend, and perhaps earlier, was that The Dark Knight was something different for the superhero genre, and the imprint the film left has easily made it the most important comic book movie to be released in the last 15 years.
What The Dark Knight did for the genre all started with 2005’s Batman Begins. Director Christopher Nolan had already been emerging as one of the best filmmakers of his generation with films like Memento and Insomnia before he was tasked with rejuvenating the Batman brand. After a successful run that began with 1989’s Batman, the franchise came to a screeching halt with the release of 1997’s Batman & Robin.
Designed by Warner Bros. as a living and breathing toy commercial for children, the film sank to a low level of camp that didn’t resonate with critics or moviegoers, and it was deemed a true misfire that tarnished the franchise. Even though all signs pointed to Nolan’s Batman Begins stepping away from the fun and games of Joel Schumacher’s last effort, moviegoers were rightfully skeptical.
The Success of Batman Begins Set the Tone for The Dark Knight
Ultimately fans were rewarded with a film that was a return to form for the brand. The movie was a vast improvement over Batman & Robin, most notably because of its more mature tone, a deeper psychological focus on its characters, and its character-driven storyline. It was also grounded in reality, which allowed it to transcend its comic book inspiration. This is something that Nolan would carry into The Dark Knight even further.
The Dark Knight imagined a world that was far more similar to our own. There is a sense of the fantastical and outrageous elements that fans of the comics would recognize, but it was reconfigured to match a very real-world scenario in which a madman becomes an agent of chaos that mirrors a brand of terrorism that we’ve become all too familiar with.
The central theme of the film is escalation, as the rise of Heath Ledger’s Joker is a direct response to Batman’s growing vigilantism. Batman is armed with high-tech military equipment that he uses against common criminals, and the Joker’s escalated lawlessness becomes the inevitable reaction to counter the Caped Crusader.
As the Joker’s lawlessness grows, the film showcases the consequences of civil and government authorities abandoning the rules they stand for to fight this war on terror. The script, credited to Nolan and his brother Jonathan, presents ideas on the page that make it very clear they were not seeking to make a mere comic book movie. They wanted to make a film that had something more to say.
At the film’s heart, The Dark Knight isn’t really a superhero movie. Nolan wisely chose to make a crime thriller first and a superhero movie second. Take away some of the outlandish outfits, and you have a film that is really about political and police corruption that allows the mob to move all of its dirty money around Gotham City.
There are no sky beams or final battles that showcase $200 million worth of special effects. This is a fight for the heart and integrity of the city and the people that live in it. It’s a classic tale of light vs. dark and a city that is succumbing to the corruption of that darkness. Batman hopes to be some kind of beacon of hope, but his vigilantism inspires so many copycats that are inspired to do the same thing that the lines between what’s right and what’s wrong become blurred.
This is why Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent is so important. He’s a public figure that doesn’t need to hide behind a mask to make a difference. Batman recognizes that Gotham needs its “white knight” and tries to make Dent its savior. The complexity of the situation is that Dent shows shades of having a dark side as well, and it’s easy for him to subdue it until Joker’s brand of chaos results in a tragedy that makes Dent the walking essence of the duality of darkness and light that has permeated the city.
As the Joker, Ledger gives us one of our most pure and truly evil villains. Unlike most comic book films, Nolan chose to not give the character an origin of tragic proportions that would weigh the character down. He’s an absolutely chaotic character that wages psychological warfare on Gotham in an attempt to make the city destroy itself. The character is terrifying because of his lack of motivation, which is far more fascinating than the fight for some orb or some other CGI-related excuse that motivates most villains.
The Dark Knight Becomes a Game-Changing Success
Nolan’s grounded approach to the film made The Dark Knight even more successful than its predecessor. The film became the first comic book movie to top $1 billion globally, a vast improvement over the $373.6 million global take of Batman Begins, but its true success was the impact it had critically and on comic book movies moving forward.
The movie was recognized by many trades as one of the best films of 2008, and the movie’s critical reception appeared to make it a no-brainer during award season, but this became only partly true. While the late Heath Ledger rightfully swept the Best Supporting Actor categories from all the major award ceremonies, The Dark Knight failed to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination, despite a nod for the film’s screenplay and six other technical awards.
It was viewed as a huge snub by some, and the response became a culmination of years of criticism toward the Academy for not acknowledging high-performing popular films. Due to this, we get “The Dark Knight Rule,” which saw the Academy increasing the limit for Best Picture nominees from five to ten. Without this change, you don’t see Marvel’s Black Panther landing its Best Picture nomination years later, which is easily in direct correlation to the snub received by The Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight also became the blueprint for modern superhero films moving forward. Before the release of the film, comic book movies closely emulated their source material to some great success, but some critics continued to view them as disposable entertainment. The Dark Knight gave some legitimacy to the genre that allowed it to garner some industry respect.
The downside to this is that studios felt that all or most of their comic book films had to be tonally dark and realistically gritty films. Nolan was a producer on Man of Steel, and it’s clear that The Dark Knight blueprint was cast on that film, even if it doesn’t completely work for that character. As seen from the rise of the MCU, which also began its life in 2008, a lighter approach can also be successful. The Dark Knight’s darkness was earned and was completely organic to the film’s plot.
Even after 15 years, we’re still seeing the impact of The Dark Knight. Some studios have taken the best from the film and learned from it with their comic book efforts, while others have taken the wrong cues and completely fumbled them. The important thing at the end of the day about Nolan’s The Dark Knight is that it stands on its own despite the success or failures of the films that came after it. The movie set a new standard that may never be duplicated, and that is its true legacy.