As Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters today, and early reviews slam the movie as a joyless mess, a glimmer of hope comes in the form of The LEGO Batman Movie. The first teaser for the film features the Will Arnett voiced, egocentric, sarcastic take on Batman first introduced in 2014’s The LEGO Movie. Have a look…
Directed by Chris McKay, Animation Supervisor of The LEGO Movie, and written by Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter), The LEGO Batman Movie is due out in 2017. While this is merely a spinoff of The LEGO Movie, a sequel to that film is also in the works.
The genesis of Batman in film has been quite a roller coaster over the past fifty years. Starting with the camp of Adam West’s Batman: The Movie in 1966, the film rights moved to the perfect blend of seriocomic heroics with Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989 and Batman Returns in 1992. The character took a turn deeper into the nonsensical with Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, and then took a sharp turn into darker, more serious storytelling with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. We now stand on the precipice of Batman’s next cinematic tone – a crossroads between further darkness (Dawn of Justice) and satirical fun (The Batman LEGO Movie). For now, I’ll take the satirical fun. How about you?
