Since he took over the Batman franchise in 2005, Christopher Nolan has produced two No. 1 movies, generated $1.4 billion in worldwide ticket sales and created the second-highest-grossing film of all time in The Dark Knight.

So what’s stopping him from making a third installment?

For starters, most third acts in Hollywood stink. Look at the disappointing threequels for The Godfather, Superman and the original Batman. The conclusions weren’t much better for the more recent Shrek, Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean.

“I don’t know why they’re hard to do,” Nolan says. “Maybe there’s so much expectation to them. But I wouldn’t want to do one if it weren’t going to be as good as the first or second. That’s not respectful to the fans.

Nolan says that reverence informed the making of The Dark Knight DVD and Blu-ray, out Tuesday. Then on Jan. 23, fans get another chance to see the film on the big screen as it’s re-released the day after Academy Award nominations arrive. Many consider Heath Ledger, who died of a prescription overdose on Jan. 22, a shoo-in for a supporting-actor nomination. But fans won’t find much more of Ledger’s Joker in DVD extras. There are features on the staging of the film’s elaborate stunts, alternate angles and a segment on the technology behind Batman’s gadgets, but not a single deleted scene or outtake from Ledger’s performance.

Nolan says he wasn’t keeping deleted scenes from fans. “For my past three films, I really haven’t had scenes that didn’t make it in the movie,” he says. “If it’s in the final script, I tend put it on screen.”

Any outtakes, however, were intentionally left off the DVD. “I don’t like outtakes or gag reels,” Nolan says. “I don’t think it’s respectful to the actors, who signed on to have their performance on screen, not the takes that didn’t work out. It discourages actors from going all-out if they think every mistake is going on the disc.”

Nolan says he is jotting notes and doing some rough outlines for a third story, but he hasn’t yet found anything he’s willing to commit to film, despite Warner Bros.’ eagerness to get a new film underway.

“It was obvious when the box office was so big ($530 million domestically) that we had underestimated how ready fans were to reboot the franchise,” he says. “The worst thing you could do now that you’ve gotten the plane back in the air is mess up the landing.”

Source: USA Today

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