Extreme Fans: Catch Up with the Latest in Batman Fan Films
Posted 11.12.12 by Ryan
Since his first appearance in 1939's Detective Comics #27, Batman has been an enduring figure in all forms of media, only occasionally stepping out of the pop culture zeitgeist. This summer, director Christopher Nolan finished his Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises, which successfully re-established a Batman movie franchise after 1997's Batman & Robin had shut it down. While The Dark Knight Rises won't arrive on DVD and Blu-ray until next month, the animated Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 arrived on home video last week. Still, there's always an opportunity to catch up with the Caped Crusader in the seemingly endless stream of fan-made movies.
While not bankrolled by any studio, "fan films" are not made for profit but for the love of the characters. The results are popular, with a rapt audience often financially supporting their favorite fan-made projects online. While it would be impossible to reveal them all, we've compiled the latest in Batman fan movies for your convenience, which, as one might expect, span from impressively produced to laughably awful.
One of the most recent fan-made movies is Arkham Rising, which is directly tied to Dark Knight Rises and imagines a scene that could have been included in the movie where Bane enters Arkham Asylum and releases the inmates inside.
An entire fan-made web series has been created involving Batman's old partner, Nightwing. The original Robin, Dick Grayson eventually retired as Robin to become Nightwing, and in Nightwing: Escalation, it's up to Nightwing to clean up the streets once Batman has left Gotham. Episode 3 arrived in August and is also clearly inspired by the Nolan movies. Watch out for some NSFW language and a scantily-clad Selina Kyle.
One of the most popular Batman fan movies is Batman - City of Scars, which was released online last year. The makers of that movie have continued with a series called Super Power Beat Down, a recent episode of which sees Batman fighting against Wolverine.
Forget Wolverine, have you ever wondered whether Batman would defeat Spider-Man? The answer is here in Batman vs. Spider-Man, wherein two people dressed as the characters "fight" in an underground parking lot and on a building rooftop in front of a home video camera. In what is truly a "homegrown" effort, comic book continuity is thrown out the window to depict Batman and Spider-Man as suburban bros named Derek and Nick who hang out together, play video games and have no idea that the other is a costumed vigilante.
Did you know that Batman does dishes? And did you know that PlayStation has a video game that involves a square jumping over triangles and other squares? It's one of many mysteries unraveled in part one of Batman vs. Spider-Man.
Have you seen a fan-made movie you like? Or do you think you can do better? If you do, why not try making your own? Despite the amount of fan-made movies online, there's clearly a lot of extreme fans out there looking for more.