In his and Goyer’s conversation, Horowitz compared “Batman Begins” to Richard Donner’s “Superman: The Movie,” which also takes its time getting to Superman in the suit. Goyer added that he, Nolan and co. mapped out their structure against other comic book films, like “Superman” and Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man,” to show that Batman’s belated arrival wasn’t that late.
“We were ready to process the [WB] case,” Goyer explained. He confirmed that there was a draft that began with a cold open of Batman on the roof of Arkham Asylum, spreading his cape as the police chase him (which happens later in the film), “but very quickly, thank God, we dispensed with that.”
Reading between the lines of Goyer’s words, you can gather what the root of Warner Bros.’ concern was: no Batman in the first hour of the film would mean there would be no action in the first hour. However, Goyer and Nolan were aware of this potential problem. To ensure that audiences didn’t think Bruce Wayne was boring, they decided to show that he could kick ass without a bat costume.
“We knew pretty early on that we needed to make the audience fall in love with Bruce Wayne,” Goyer explained. “We needed to have […] an incredible action sequence, as incredible as anything in ‘Indiana Jones,’ that involved Bruce Wayne and not Batman.”
This action scene ended up being when Bruce escapes the League of Shadows’ stronghold. Even before that, however, there are bursts of action, such as when Bruce Cerces with Ducard on a frozen lake. This ensured that the audience wouldn’t subconsciously make the connection of “Bruce Wayne Scenes = boring talking scenes, where’s Batman?”
Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s 1987 “Batman: One” (one of the main source materials for “Batman Begins”) does something similar. The book has four chapters (“Batman” Issues #404-407), but the first one doesn’t feature Bruce in the Batsuit. Instead, the first chapter follows him as he goes out fighting crime without the costume and fails because the criminals don’t fear him. By the end of the chapter, he realizes he must “become a bat” and debuts as Batman in Chapter 2. Like “Year One,” “Batman Begins” understood that Bruce Wayne’s origin story can and should be an engaging, atmospheric, action-packed story, not just a Batman debut.
