Help fund a cool Batman fan film featuring The Riddler...

Last week, we reported on the news that Leonardo DiCaprio could have played The Riddler in The Dark Knight Rises. While that obviously didn’t happen (pending any surprise cameos at the end of the credits, say), there’s more Riddler-y goodness (narratively, rather than morally, speaking, obviously) to be had in the form of a planned fan-made short film.

The synopsis is as follows:

Batman: Puppet Master is a short fan film set in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight universe. The story is meant as a sequel to The Dark Knight and will bridge the gap between that film and the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises. This is a film created by fans for fans and will deliver an exciting storyline that will introduce fans to new versions of Mr. Zsasz, The Ventriloquist, and Edward Nigma (aka The Riddler), who fans were expecting to appear in Nolan’s third Batman film.

The Kick-start campaign runs until Wednesday June 13, 6:22 pm EDT, so if you want to be a part of it and help the project get made, you'll have to be quick.

No-one will make any money from this, it’s simply a bunch of Christopher Nolan’s Batman fans (NolanBatfans? BatNolanfans? DarkBatmanfans? The Knights of Nolan?) aiming to tell a cool story.

Consider this as a sort of Bat-signal, but for the fans rather than Batman, calling them to action. Maybe it’s like in Batman Begins, where all the bats shawarma* swarm, but Bruce Wayne faces and overcomes his fear of them, taking the bat as a symbol, and becoming…Genius Billionaire...I mean, Batman.

(Or something like that. It’s not a perfect metaphor…)

Maybe in Batman-world (okay, Gotham, but it’s more fun to say Batman-world), crowd-funding is done by chanting the name of the project you wish to support very loudly, like some kind of weird auction or something. So in the trailer, maybe when they’re all chanting “Rise”, that’s actually just the name of the project they want to get made. Maybe the chant has to reach a certain number of decibels by a certain time before the project gets funded, or something.

(Okay, that’s getting a bit surreal. Why so…not serious?)

Unlike Bruce Wayne/Batman, most fans can’t just get Lucius Fox to design cool gadgets and then have Wayne Enterprises place a bulk order for the raw materials…

Ergo, crowd-funding.

Yes, crowd-funding, that wonderful utopian world where fans come together to help awesome things get made, and unicorns frolic in the sunshine. Well, for “unicorns” read “Batman”, for “frolic” read “brood moodily” (or “mood broodily”), and for “sunshine” read “the darkened streets of Gotham, perhaps with some stylish rain or snowfall thrown in”.

Because Batman is exactly like unicorns. Except growlier.

And unicorns don’t usually go “I’m unicorns!” (Though Ralph from The Simpsons might.)

In essence, crowd-funding is the opposite of The Joker’s schemes; people teaming up and working together rather than turning against each other in their desperation to survive. (Incidentally, this tension is something explored by The Walking Dead.)

Of course, this doesn’t prove that people are inherently good. Humans are capable of both great good and great evil.

And even something like crowd-funding involves a degree of self-interest, though it is collaborative and nurtures creativity.

The horrors of humanity aren’t made up for by things like crowd-funding or, say, lolcats. (Though feline demands for cheezburger can often help to brighten one’s day a little.) It's like that scene in The Avengers between Loki and Black Widow.

And back to the subject of "Yay Batman fan film!"-type thoughts, you can support the project by going to http://batmanpuppetmaster.com, which has a promo video and a link to the Kickstarter page.

* Sorry, Avengers on the brain…

See also:

The Dark Knight sells out: of IMAX tickets
Awesome low-budget The Avengers trailer spoof
Gritty Casey Jones fan film: Taking the TMNT mythos too dark?
EXCELSIOR! Why the Future of Movies is Marvel

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