The Internet is constantly abuzz with superhero movie rumors these days, but one of the biggest at the moment is Latino Review is reporting that Christian Bale will reprise his role as Batman in the Justice League of America movie, despite his Bruce Wayne effectively hanging up the cape and cowl at the end of The Dark Knight Rises. The site also claims that Christopher Nolan will oversee development of JLA in a sort of godfather role.

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It remains to be seen if these rumors will pan out. However, the rumor has us wondering all the more if it's really such a good idea for Warner Bros. to be jumping from this summer's Superan reboot, Man of Steel, straight into a JLA ensemble movie. We're of the opinion that it might be better to to build slowly towards JLA and first offer fans a movie that almost came to pass a decade ago - a Superman/Batman movie. As DC's two biggest heroes, they've enjoyed a long history together in the company's various World's Finest comics and similar projects. In this feature, we explore why it might be better to go the World's Finest route first and save JLA for later on the calendar.

Starting Small

Setting the Tone of the Universe

Re-Introducing Batman

Expanding the Rogues Galleries

Develop a Road Map

Marvel Studios has taken a very simple but effective approach with their superhero films. They started out with solo projects that spotlighted their four biggest heroes - Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America. Along the way, the studio used these movies to introduce less well-known characters such as Nick Fury, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. After several years of build-up, they finally combined all of these characters into one ensemble movie. Now the process is starting over as the Phase 2 movies begin delving further into Marvel's catalog of characters and building towards the even bigger Avengers 2.WB seems to want to take the opposite approach. They've been planning a Justice League movie for years, which would introduce moviegoers to characters like Wonder Woman and The Flash and leave the characters poised to spin out into their own solo franchises afterward. This isn't necessarily any less valid an approach than Marvel's. The problem is that now Marvel's method is a proven one, while WB's isn't. WB shouldn't be attempting the opposite approach solely because they want to be different than Marvel. That's like Chevy designing cars with three wheels because they don't want them to look like Ford cars.A World's Finest movie would offer a compromise. It would allow WB to ease into their ensemble team-up without having to devote several years to solo movies. A World's Finest movie also leaves more room for growth. The problem with kicking things off with a JLA movie is that WB has thrown all of their big guns out at once. It may make for big, grand spectacle, but it sets the bar high right off the bat and makes it difficult for future movies to keep the momentum going. Everyone loves the first Iron Man movie, but what if it had debuted after Avengers instead of before it? World's Finest keeps the scale just a little more intimate so that there's room to expand in the full team-up movie.Not to mention the fact that a Superman/Batman team-up is about as safe a bet as a studio can find these days. Audiences know and love both characters. If Batman alone can rake in a billion dollars at the box office, we see no reason why a well-executed World's Finest movie couldn't do better still. And there's very little risk as far as damaging the brands. If movies like Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Batman & Robin proved anything, it's that these characters will endure no matter how bad their movies are. The Green Lantern movie may have harmed Hal Jordan's future Hollywood prospects, but Superman and Batman will always have a place on the big screen. If Latino Review is correct, Christian Bale's Batman will be returning for the JLA movie. If true, that means that there are currently two franchises building towards JLA, and they seem to feature wildly different tones and stylistic approaches. Nolan's Batman trilogy was dark, brooding, and a relatively realistic take on superhero storytelling. Nolan's Gotham City was grounded in the real world and didn't necessarily allow for more outlandish characters like a teenage sidekick, giant alligator men, or kooky chicks who talk to plants.While Zack Snyder's Man of Steel looks to take a few cues from the Dark Knight movies in terms of emotional content, it's still a story about an alien who can fly and throw tanks around and disguise his identity by putting on a pair of glasses. There's nothing terribly realistic about Superman.The challenge moving forward is figuring out how to marry these stylistic approaches and create a tonally consistent DC Universe on the big screen. How does a guy like Bale's Bruce Wayne hold his own against men and women with amazing superhuman abilities? Is the action going to be realistic like in the Dark Knight movies, or should we expect the sort of exaggerated, stylized brawls that define superhero movies like Watchmen? Does Batman's costume change now? Is Gotham City like the one we saw in the Dark Knight movies, or is it more akin to Tim Burton or Joel Schumacher's Gotham? How does the world at large respond to the emergence of superheroes?The fact is that after this summer we'll have two movie franchises offering two wildly different takes on the DC Universe. WB needs to establish a more cohesive world for these heroes to occupy, and it's easier to do that with Batman and Superman alone than drawing in Wonder Woman ,Green Lantern, and everything else. Again, a World's Finest movie offers a chance to take the process more slowly and not rush headlong into something as big and potentially unwieldy as JLA. One of the more pressing questions surrounding WB's shared DC universe is what they're going to do about Batman. Most assumed the JLA movie would feature a new actor portraying a new version of the Caped Crusader, even though The Dark Knight Rises introduced Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake as the successor to Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne. It didn't seem likely that any version of Batman from Nolan's world was really poised to stand alongside the Justice League. But now the rumor is that Bale's Bruce Wayne will be back. Whatever actually comes to pass, WB really needs to focus on establishing the version of Batman that will be appearing in future movies.Even if Bale is back, there's the question of whether he'll be playing the exact same version of Bruce he did before. After all, The Dark Knight Rises ended with an older, battered Bruce faking his death and going into hiding with Selina Kyle. Whatever resources and gadgets he had left were entrusted to Blake. What good is a Batman like that to the Justice League? Acknowledging all of those problems, how do you then explain how Bruce transitions back into the role of Batman? We suspect a good portion of moviegoers just won't care. They just want to watch Batman make criminals soil themselves. But at the very least, a vocal minority will demand an explanation for why Bale's Bruce is back in the cape and cowl.We see there being two ideal options if the Bale rumor is true. One is that The Dark Knight Rises is treated as an alternate universe story. World's Finest can pick up where The Dark Knight left off. Batman is working underground after taking the fall for Harvey Dent, but he's still young, reasonably healthy, and filthy rich. By joining forces with Superman (and later the Justice League), Batman has the opportunity to redeem himself in the public eye. Meanwhile, the appearance of flying aliens can mark a transition point where the realism of the past falls away and Batman starts contending with foes like Clayface and Poison Ivy. And with the long gap between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, it's not out of the realm of possibility to claim that these superhero team-ups happened in between the two movies anyway. (Again, it's an alternate universe where Bruce's Batman hasn't been in hiding since the night Harvey Dent died.)The other option is more simple. WB can be very plain about the fact that Bale is playing Batman again, but not the same Batman as before. In all likelihood, WB wants Bale back because he's a proven quantity and because there aren't that many Hollywood actors with the right combination of traits to portray Batman. Nothing more complicated than that. Hardcore fans might complain about continuity and so forth, but how important is that at the end of the day? Would you rather have Bale play a new version of Batman or see WB hire some random MMA fighter to do the job?In the end, whether Bale actually is coming back or WB does find a new actor for the job, they need to take some time to establish Batman in this shared superhero universe. That doesn't necessarily mean diving right into another Batman solo franchise. But kicking off a new Batman in a JLA movie seems unwise. As Avengers proved, even with a relatively small team of half a dozen, there's only so much space to accommodate each hero and their particular foibles. A World's Finest movie seems like the ideal vehicle to reintroduce Batman and begin the process of integrating his franchise with the rest of the DCU.For all the positive hype it's been gathering, Man of Steel isn't exactly breaking new ground in terms of villains. The movie will pit Superman against General Zod and his Kryptonian minions, a clash which we already saw in Superman II decades ago. And that's it, as far as anyone knows. Even Lex Luthor is sitting this one out. His absence will be felt as strongly as J. Jonah Jameson's was in The Amazing Spider-Man last year.Meanwhile, Batman is facing one of two problems. If Bale is reprising his role and playing the same version of Bats from the Nolan movies, then his rogues gallery options are already limited. Two-Face, Bane, and the Al Ghul family are dead. Joker might as well be dead, because with Nolan "godfathering" the DC movies we don't anticipate him being very keen on having anther actor replace the late Heath Ledger. This in itself is one of the strongest arguments for rebooting Batman's world. If Bale or another actor is playing a different version of Batman, then there's the problem that Batman's rogues won't be any more established than he is.Both characters have a lot of building ahead of them. We'd like to see a World's Finest movie shoulder some of that burden and introduce more supporting players. What better threat for a Batman/Superman team than Joker and Lex Luthor? The movie could tackle both villains in one fell swoop, all the while being able to offer a distinctly different take on the villains than what we've seen in past movies. That pairing has good cross-pollination potential too. Lex Luthor can challenge Bruce Wayne in the board room, while Joker is unpredictable enough to keep even Superman on his toes.Current rumors point to Darkseid and the New Gods serving as the villains of the JLA movie. What about the countless DC villains that reside on Earth? There are any number of characters who might not pose much of a threat to the full JLA lineup but would be proper opponents for a Superman/Batman duo. The movie could follow the format of the graphic novel Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (and the animated movie it inspired) by forcing the two heroes on a worldwide tour with a who's who of DC villains attempting to bring them down. Even without the JLA in the spotlight, World's Finest could still go a long way towards shining a light on less popular DC characters and locales.Ultimately, we don't know if these recent rumors are true. We don't know if Nolan has been tapped to oversee future DC films. We don't know if Bale will return as Batman. The central problem is that WB's plans for these movies always seem to be in flux. Is the reason there have been so many conflicting rumors surrounding the JLA movie because there's been misinformation purposefully leaked, or because some of them were true for a time until WB changed direction?The DC movies need a strong, clear sense of direction moving forward. That's something we're seeing from the various studios handling Marvel movies. Marvel Studios has been executing a plan for years, and now they have Joss Whedon firmly in place to guide them towards The Avengers 2 and on television with S.H.I.E.L.D. Fox recently hired writer Mark Millar as a consultant to help them develop a road map for their X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises and build their own shared Marvel Universe. Even Sony seems intent on expanding the Spider-Man franchise and building movies around more than just Peter Parker.This is the sort of long-term planning we want to see from WB. Man of Steel is the first step in what will hopefully be a grand debut of a shared DC Universe on film. But the studio needs to know where they're going and how best to pace the movies. Jumping straight from a Superman solo movie to a full-scale JLA team-up just doesn't seem like the best route to take. World's Finest allows WB to take more of a "slow burn" approach. It's banked on two proven money-makers. WB would have to actively try to make a movie like that fail at the box office. A World's Fienst movie would allow the studio to test the team-up formula, see what works, and apply those lessons towards the JLA movie. It allows them to put JLA on the back burner and ensure that it has all the time it needs to fully coalesce (especially after rumors of a lousy script draft being scrapped). We want to see a JLA on the big screen. But we want a JLA movie done right. If that means waiting a few more years and getting a World's Finest movie in the interim, we're more than happy with that prospect.

Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter , or Kicksplode on MyIGN