Unreality Companion: Over-Baturation

In which I develop on the content of my weekly Unrealitymag.com article.

This week at unreality, I reviewed the series premiere of Fox's Gotham.  However, in looking back at all of the Batman outings that we've had over the years, I found myself agreeing with Moviebob that "maybe, just maybe, we've finally reached the point where there's enough Batman for a while."

Just think about it for a minute: how much Batman we've gotten over the years compared to other, equally-deserving heroes.  This is the day and age where any superhero is fair game for a movie.  Marvel's been churning out new superheroes one after another since 2008: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow.  Guardians of the Galaxy has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has earned over $600 million worldwide, and that's a team that couldn't be any more obscure if it actively tried to be.  Meanwhile, DC capped off its Batman quadrilogy with Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, and now the sequel to Man of Steel pits him against - you guessed it - Batman.  Oh, and I guess they also ruined Green Lantern while they were at it.

The weird thing is though, after saturating the market with Batman for going on 75 years now, I think that even DC is starting to get it.  I recently reviewed Batman: Assault on Arkham. an adaptation of DC's Suicide Squad that, despite its deceptive title, barely makes use of the Dark Knight at all.  His presence is more of a cameo - something to provide context to an anti-hero heist flick - that could have been dropped entirely and been none the worse for it.  Gotham takes this idea of a Batman-less Batman adaptation even further: setting the series prior to his transformation into a masked vigilante and including the newly orphaned Bruce Wayne as little more than an Easter Egg.  Despite appearing in the upcoming Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, there are currently no scheduled solo Batman movies.  Seriously.  They've schedule six other superhero movies between 2016 and 2018 - Shazam, Sandman, Wonder Woman, Man of Steel 2, a teamup betwee Flash and Green Lantern and a Justice League crossover - with nary a bat in sight.

Gal Gadot makes two.

As far as I'm concerned, that's awesome.  Don't get me wrong: I love Batman.  I think that The Dark Knight is better than The Avengers (barely) and will slavishly watch anything that they throw him into.  The thing is, though, that we don't need a Batman movie right now.  They don't need to release Batman: The Broodening before Dawn of Justice because we've all already seen Batman Begins.  No matter how much Affleck's Batman might differ from Bale's Batman, he's still Batman.  We don't need to see the Waynes' murder, Bruce's training and his eventual debut as a crime-fighter because Christopher Nolan already made that movie in 2005.

I love the fact that they're going to make a Shazam movie, whoss protagonist has the most perfect secret identity ever conceived.  It's great that we're finally going to get a Wonder Woman movie - or any solo superheroine movie, for that matter.  Green Lantern deserves better than that Martin Campbell abomination and I've always loved how his character plays off of the Flash.  I'm not saying that the DCCU should neglect making Batman movies entirely, just that we don't need to see one until after Man of Steel 2.