Continuing from downstairs:

re: #437 scottslemmons

DC had serious hits with Nolan’s Batman movies, and decided that was the way to have a hit comic book movie — dark colors, grimdark attitude, very little humor. That may work for Batman, but it’s less effective for a character who’s supposed to be sunny and optimistic, like Superman.

Well, the thing is that the Nolan films did for the Batman film franchise what its cultural predecessors The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke did for the comics: It resurrected the character from his slide into the depths of campiness. The problem is that, like DC and Marvel leaned too heavily on the “dark and gritty” atmosphere those comics did and defined an entire “Age” of comics by them, DC’s working under the impression that what made the Nolan films successfully was people wanting to see “dark and gritty” films.