EXCLUSIVE
'Dark Knight' director says he isn't sure he will make a third Bat-film. Why? He says: "I have to ask the question: How many good third movies in a franchise can people name?"
This is the first of a three-part interview with Christopher Nolan, the director of the astoundingly successful summer film “The Dark Knight,” which has pulled in $528 million in the U.S. alone (a total second only to “Titanic”) and has worldwide grosses that are now approaching the $1 billion mark.
The 38-year-old London native has just returned home to Los Angeles (where he attended the Spike TV Scream 2008 Awards, pictured above) after a monthlong stay at Anna Maria Island on the west coast of Florida where, along with playing on the beach with his children, he contemplated the commercial success of his grim superhero epic — as well as the industry buzz about the film’s chances during the upcoming Oscar season. In today's installment, he talks about the perceived politics of the movie, his plans for the future and that staggering box-office total.
GB: Welcome back to L.A. So I'm curious, tell me one of the surprises you've had during the journey of this film after its release on July 18.
NOLAN: It’s funny, I’ve been asked a lot about the politics of the film. I dismiss all such analogies [laughs]. It really isn’t something we think about as we put the story together, myself, David Goyer and Jonathan [Nolan, brother of the director]. But I would point to the interrogation scene with Batman and the Joker — not that there is a specific political point, per se — but that I was interested in getting the actors to explore a paradox: How do you fight somebody who essentially thrives on aggression?
GB: I winced when I read a lot of the political messaging that people said they detected in your film. I think a lot of that says more about my industry than it does yours.
NOLAN: [Laughs] "Yes, you may be right."
GB: It seems to me that, more often than not in a genre such as the one you’re working in, most of the political messaging has more to do with the viewer than the filmmaker. It’s inferred, not implied.
NOLAN: I agree completely. Especially if you do it right. If you’re working in a genre that is heightened reality. I like to talk about these films as having an operatic quality or being on a grand scale and a bit removed from the rhythms of real life, no matter how realistic we try to make the scenes themselves. In this scene, for instance, we went for the gritty realism in the textures of it, but it is a heightened reality. We’re trying to work on a more universal scale. If you get that right, people are going to be able to bring a wide variety of interpretations to it depending on who they are. It’s allowing the characters to be a conduit to the audience. Allowing an audience to sit there and relate to Batman and his dilemma 
whether they are Republican or Democrat or whatever. ...
GB: "The Dark Knight" is closing in on $1 billion. How do you get your arms around that kind of success?
NOLAN: I can’t get my arms around it, to be quite frank. It’s mystifying. It’s terrific but at the same time it’s a little abstract, the numbers are so big. The biggest thrill for me would be, with the number of people who have gone to see the film, how "The Dark Knight" stood on the shoulders of the first film, how we were able to build the audience up and build the story up from the first film. That was really exciting to see. We were all pretty happy with the performance of the first film but so we really didn’t know, "Where does it go from there?" For it to become such a phenomenon is extraordinarily gratifying. I mean, I’ve spent now like six years or something working on Batman films. It becomes an important part of your life; you become very obsessive about it, and it's pretty fun when there are other people sharing your obsession and going to see the film a dozen times or whatever.
Wrapping your arms around the scale of the success, as you ask, I don’t find that possible really. There’s something liberating in knowing that my next film, whatever it is, isn’t going to make as much money [laughter]. I don’t have to try for years.
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Stanley Kubrick at work on the set of "Dr. Strangelove"
Superman on stage on Broadway in 1966
A Super trilogy?: 
"Peanuts," reconsidered: 
Nolan: It was a great set built into a location. It had all of the advantages of feeling that we were in a real place. 
I'm going to see Daniel Craig (right) as 007 in "Quantum of Solace" this Wednesday night but plenty of journos have seen it already. Here's a quick critical mass report:
