Batfans have long been awaiting official confirmation of a third Batman movie from Christopher Nolan, director of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. No announcement on that yet, but this week Warner Bros (which owns the character and his DC Comics superfriends) apparently confirmed a new outing for the caped crusader: not a dark blockbuster movie, but a family-friendly stage show.
According to heatvisionblog, which is written by the Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit, Batman Live will be "an elaborate arena production aimed at kids and families" with a villain-heavy script by Alan Burnett, a veteran of Warner's successful superhero animation stable. The project is reportedly being developed under the auspices of Warner Bros consumer products department, with licensing deals lined up for companies involved in the touring shows of Walking With Dinosaurs and Mamma Mia!. No opening date has been announced.
With such emphasis on merchandising in this early report, it's hard not to detect a whiff of corporate exploitation of a valuable franchise – but, hey, that's what entertainment conglomerates do, and it needn't mean the results won't be enjoyable. One of the defining characteristics of comic-book superheroes is that their iconic simplicity – a two-or-three-colour costume, a strong, simple backstory, a couple of basic characteristics – can be adapted across a wide variety of genres. There's no reason Batman shouldn't be simultaneously mean and moody on the big screen and square-jawed cartoonish fun on stage.
Prestige superhero musicals have a chequered track record, from the short-lived 1966 Broadway version of Superman to Julie Taymor's long-delayed Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the $50m project with songs by Bono and the Edge, whose opening date remains uncomfirmed. Having recently lost both Alan Cumming and Evan Rachel Wood from its cast, it's hardly an enticing role model. And putting superheroes on stage is no mean feat – there's a basic suspension-of-disbelief issue that must be overcome if audiences are to believe a man can fly, or shoot webbing from his wrists, or dress as a flying rodent to avenge his parents, and not snigger at his spandex while he does it. This, however, is an area in which a Batman show with a darker edge could potentially excel. Unlike Clark Kent or Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne does not have superpowers but instead relies on brains, muscle and an acute sense of theatricality.
From the character's earliest days, he embraced the ability of costume and blocking to make an impression on criminals – "to strike terror into their hearts" before lifting a finger by simply looking bad-ass and exploiting lighting and sight lines. It's a facet of the character that Nolan picked up on in his first film, showing a family outing to the opera making a powerful impression on young Bruce. He's also, by comic-book standards, a notoriously tormented figure, wrestling with his past and his impulses.
Not too hard, then, to imagine a show combining the stagecraft of The Woman in Black, the costume design of Die Fledermaus and the anti-hero characterisation of, say, The Phantom of the Opera that could have substantial populist appeal beyond family-friendly fun. For now, though, it seems to be BIFF! BOFF! KAPOW! all the way.
