A New Batman movie is coming out this year, and I don't care

Only a few years ago I never would have thought that was possible.

The Dark Knight is still the most hyped any movie has ever made me, but Rises and BvS were also huge deals.  Now this year is going to give us the first proper simple Batman movie since 2012, and first movie with Batman in the title since 2016.  But it doesn’t feel like Batman has been absent the way he was between those films.

Some people feel the Superhero genre itself is going to die of oversaturation, but the Superhero genre is inherently diverse in what it can do in ways that I feel make that impossible.  But Batman specifically has been overexposed.

Batman has been in an Animated movie every few months and been tied to multiple TV shows. And we’ve had Theatrically released films featuring Batman characters and lore.  I'm not criticising any individual of those projects, of even the loosest definition of what can be considered a Batman movie the only ones I truly dislike are a couple of the Animated ones.

Disney has quickly done the same to Star Wars, a Star Wars movie is no longer an Event, instead it was an annual thing for a while.

And while DC has been giving all this attention to Batman, there still hasn’t been a Superman Animated series since the 90s.

Meanwhile I’ve gotten into Anime during this same time period, and while this may have been unthinkable to me in 2008, Batman arguably isn’t even my favorite Nerd Franchise anymore.

But in-spite of all that, I could have been excited for The Batman if they gave me the impression it would be a new different kind of Batman movie.  As someone who has been one of the biggest Nolan Batman fanboys, I always wanted the next Batman franchise to not be more of that, to move beyond the Gritty Realism obsession.  Instead it looks like Mat Reeves was inspired by one of those old 2009-2010 fan trailers of what a “Nolanized” Riddler would be like.

I don’t want a theatrical Batman movie that isn’t at all serious and has no “darkness” in it.  But I want one that is maybe not literally unrealistic but still has a fantastical quality to it.

What am I excited for?  As far as Hollywood movies go the final Jurassic World film, Godzilla vs Kong and The Suicide Squad are what I may check if we can go to theaters again at some point this year.  For Anime we should finally get the Sailor Moon Eternal films, the end of Attack on Titan and the Dub of the final Heaven’s Feel film.  That’s all I currently know to expect, with Anime what I often like the most a given year is what was totally unexpected.  

Update March 28th: Great, my very first post of 2021 wound up being an inaccurate premise, The Batman has been delayed to 2022.