For his 2008 masterpiece The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan took his main inspiration from Michael Mann’s 1995 crime film Heat, retaining the same realism and precision filming techniques for the Batman movie. There are many other examples of superhero films that have borrowed elements, tones or visuals from other movies, which we recount in our list of 10 Movies That Directly Inspired Comic Book Movies, which you can find in the gallery below!
We were inspired to make this list by revisiting Heat on the new Director’s Definitive Edition Blu-ray that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is releasing today. The two-disc set features a three-part documentary on the making of the film, a conversation between stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and, yes, a Q&A with cast and crew moderated by Christopher Nolan!
Click here to order the new Blu-ray release of Michael Mann’s Heat!
What’s your favorite pairing of superhero movie and its antecedent from our list? Can you think of others we left out? Let us know in the comments below!
10 Movies That Directly Inspired Comic Book Movies
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GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 (2017) and NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)
Alfred Hitchcock aficionados who went to see Vol. 2 this weekend probably noticed that the chase scene between Gamora and her homicidal sister Nebula resembled the famous North by Northwest sequence where Cary Grant is chased by a crop duster through a field. Director James Gunn acknowledged as much in a video essay for the New York Times.
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LOGAN (2017) and UNFORGIVEN (1992)
Director James Mangold and star Hugh Jackman wanted to take Wolverine out on an elegiac note for Logan, and deliberately modeled the film as a neo western in the deconstructionist mold of Clint Eastwood's classic Best Picture winner Unforgiven.
“I was really inspired by 'Unforgiven,'” said Hugh Jackman to the Independent.
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DOCTOR STRANGE (2016) and INCEPTION (2010)
Just from watching the early trailer, it was very clear that Marvel's Doctor Strange was taking a page or three from Christopher Nolan's more popular films, especially the city-bending psychedelic visuals of Inception. The effects creators admitted to as much on the Blu-ray special features.
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DEADPOOL (2016) and FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (1986)
Ryan Reynolds' Wade Wilson spends much of Deadpool's runtime breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience. This same technique was utilized 30 years ago for John Hughes' comedy classic Ferris Bueller, and a final end credits Deadpool coda pays homage to its forbearer, complete with robe, and even the same crystal door handles from that Bueller end credits scene.
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SUICIDE SQUAD (2016) and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)
Implanting a captured, hard-edged criminal with a device in order to control them into going on a suicide mission into a city taken over by villains. Sound like the plot of Suicide Squad? Well it's also the plot of John Carpenter's Escape From New York, although instead of one Snake Plisskin, filmmaker David Ayer lined up about half a dozen Snake-esque badasses to go on a death-defying mission. Many reviewers noted the similarity upon release.
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CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014) and THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975)
The folks at Marvel like to hone in on a specific genre for each of their superhero films, and for The Winter Soldier, the Russo Brothers decided to pay homage to the paranoid thrillers of the '70s, even going so far as to cast Three Days of the Condor's Robert Redford.
"This movie owes a big debt to 'Three Days of the Condor,'" Joe Russo told Badass Digest. "It was really inspired by that film, and you could call this one 'Three Days of Captain America.' That’s why getting Redford was so crucial."
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THE GREEN HORNET (2011) and LETHAL WEAPON (1987)
The mismatched buddy action comedy has a long, sacred tradition in American cinema, and that's why writer/star Seth Rogen set out to do his own version of that dynamic using the classic characters Green Hornet and Kato.
Rogen's plan from the get-go was to do "a buddy action movie with humor, like 'Lethal Weapon' and '48 Hrs.'"
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WATCHMEN (2009) and TAXI DRIVER (1976)
Jackie Earle Haley's deranged vigilante Rorschach takes many of his cues from Robert De Niro's psychotic Taxi Driver cabbie Travis Bickle in Zack Snyder's Watchmen, but that influence spilled out onto the sets as well.
"Zack and I talked about the best representation of the reality level of the film and decided to use 'Taxi Driver' as the core reference," production desgner Alex McDowell said. "We took frames from 'Taxi Driver,' then painted them with the 'Watchmen' colors so the end result is both period-correct, pop-culturally referential and graphic-novel layered. One of the bars on the street came directly from Taxi Driver."
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THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) and HEAT (1995)
“I’ve drawn inspiration from it in my own work,” Christopher Nolan said of Heat when he moderated a panel with cast and crew last year. Said panel appears as a special feature of the new Blu-ray.
The most prominent example of that influence is The Dark Knight, where Nolan brought Mann's sense of character parallel between crimefighters and criminals, as well as the stylish energy of the bank robbery sequence. Oh, and both films feature actor William Fichtner!
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THE ROCKETEER (1991) and KING OF THE ROCKET MEN (1949)
In the late '40s and early '50s, Republic Pictures made several serials starring a jet-pack-wearing rocket man hero, including King of the Rocket Men, Zombies of the Stratosphere and Radar Men From the Moon. Cartoonist Dave Stevens sought to channel the spirit of these 12-chapter serials in his comic The Rocketeer, and Joe Johnston adapted it faithfully for his 1991 feature adaptation which gave the material sex appeal and a Indiana Jones-esque flavor.
