Re: Third Nolan Batman film title announced!
The problem isn't that The Caped Crusader would make people think of Adam West -- the problem is that it wouldn't make people think of Christian Bale. Remember, films have to be targeted at a mass audience, not just the people who are already familiar with the concept. The Dark Knight was one of the most successful superhero movies ever made -- of course they're going to include The Dark Knight in the title to its sequel.
The Caped Crusader makes me think Batman...period.
Yes, but you're a Batman fan. As I said, movie studios cannot base their marketing solely on the existing fanbase. Not only does a movie need to draw in a larger, mass audience to succeed, but the existing fanbase
will come anyway, so they don't need to be marketed to. Hence, the title needs to be something that will draw in the people out there who aren't already Batman fans. People who may have never seen a Batman story before BB or even before TDK. People who came to the movie not because it was a Batman story but because they wanted to see Christian Bale or Heath Ledger or Morgan Freeman or Gary Oldman or whoever, or who were there with a date, or who wanted to see what all the hype was about, or whatever. People like that constitute the bulk of a successful motion picture's audience.
So the people in charge of marketing this film have to market it the way they'd market any other sequel to a hugely successful film, and that means they'll give it a title that reflects the title of that film, so that moviegoers in general, even those who don't know a blessed thing about Batman's history or lore, will look at the title and realize, "Hey, this is a sequel to that movie Heath Ledger made before he died!" or "Hey, this is another Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale movie!" Or even, "Hmm, I didn't see that
Dark Knight picture, but I heard it was really impressive, and this must be a sequel to it, so maybe I'll try it out."
It's the same reason the third Rambo movie was called
Rambo III instead of
First Blood Part III -- because
Rambo: First Blood Part II was a far more successful movie than
First Blood. It was a more familiar, recognizable name to mass audiences. Marketing is about drawing in the people who
aren't already familiar with the property. And those people wouldn't recognize that
The Caped Crusader refers to Batman.
