The Dark Knight: What Should Be the Batman Movie? What Story is Next?

How do you follow perfection? The Dark Knight is being compared to Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Gladiator, and Braveheart. It's a perfect movie of sweeping scope captured by the cinematography. A list cast and excellent acting. A screenplay worthy of an Oscar. They've already broken records for the largest midnight showing and the biggest single day grosser. It took in a Bat-tastic $66 million on opening Friday. So another movie is for certain. But how can they attempt to meet this expectation?

Well, I'm perusing through comics to rate which Batman stories would translate best to blockbuster success.

5. Knightfall - Not that great a story, as much as it's a big event. The event involves Batman against every super criminal in Gotham. And the coup de grace; super strong Bane breaks Batman's back. Batman's replacemen Azrael later gets revenge and defeats Bane. Nolan would definitely drop the back breaking- because it would uproot an audience from the fantasy (too many question and logic arise). Yet, that would cause the diehard fans to attack the movie. Let's pass on this story.

4. Kingdome Come - It's a truly amazing story. But, too many roadblocks. It involves nearly the entire DC Universe. A reduced cast of heroes would still be a nightmare of special effects budgets. The bigger hurdle, is acclimating the moviegoers to characters that completely strange to them. Pass.

3. The Long Halloween - It's regarded as one of the top tier Batman stories. Problem, it's a mystery. The audience won't go for it in a super hero movie. Watching Batman follow clues and in the end the killer is still ambiguous and not fully resolved. Pass.