Writer David Goyer Places ‘Batman Begins’ In The “Top Three Things” He’s Done On Film’s 20th Anniversary
2025 is the anniversary of several movies. The year marks the 30th anniversary of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie, the first Mortal Kombat film, and Batman Forever. The list goes on, but there is one other Batman film celebrating an occasion. Batman Begins turns 20, and it remains a film to be excited about.
One of its writers still thinks of it highly, and that man is David Goyer, who, along with director Christopher Nolan, gifted us one of the best comic book adaptations ever. And that’s not hyperbole: it’s in Goyer’s personal top three films he has worked on. After four decades in superhero cinema, that covers a lot of ground. Still, he knows his favorites, even among The Dark Knight Trilogy.
“Batman Begins, first of all, it’s, for a variety of reasons, my favorite film in the trilogy. And it’s certainly in the top three things I’ve ever worked on in my career, things that I’m the most proud of. It’s also an instance which is so rare in Hollywood where everything lined up right, and played out the way it should. It almost never happens that way,” Goyer answered during a Happy Sad Confused appearance.
“So, the whole thing was very dreamlike and magical. It was an incredibly influential film in terms of the superhero genre, comic book genre. It catapulted Chris and myself and everyone involved into a whole other level,” he continued.
Batman Begins is eclipsed by its sequel, The Dark Knight, especially in terms of box office, but it walked briskly so TDK could run. Without Begins, Bruce doesn’t become an incorruptible symbol or silent guardian that profits in the billions.
The reboot was also the first salvo in a tonal shift that would redefine DC movies for twenty years. There had been dark superhero movies before it, partially thanks to the efforts of Goyer, like Blade, but DC took a break from bright and colorful until Justice League, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman 1984.
Goyer and Nolan changed things; there was no going back. However, that’s not to say Warner Bros. was happy with every decision they made. At first, the studio had reservations about the story’s focus on Bruce for a large chunk, minus the cowl. “They were not happy about that…” said Goyer as he explained the logic behind this approach.
“As moviegoers, in a lot of these superhero movies, we were always just kind of twiddling our thumbs, waiting for the character to get in the costume, and for the movie to really begin. We knew early on that we needed to have the audience fall in love with Bruce Wayne. That we needed to have an amazing action sequence as amazing as something from Indiana Jones that involved Bruce Wayne and not Batman,” he added.
The Knight only got darker under Zack Snyder and Matt Reeves. To an extent, you can include Todd Phillips in that conversation, too. For a few years, Bat-Fans were ‘eating good’ as they say these days, but since 2022, progress on new Bat-branded items (from The Batman 2 to The Brave and the Bold) is slower than it’s been since the turn of the millennium.
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