A new The Dark Knight Returns trailer featuring Christian Bale’s Batman has gone viral across social media platforms. However, the trailer is fake and uses AI-generated footage.
It leads people to believe that Bale is returning to reprise his role as the Caped Crusader to take on a new villain in a story set after Christopher Nolan’s trilogy. However, that isn’t happening, as it’s all fake.
Christian Bale’s Batman appears in AI ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ trailer
The following fake The Dark Knight Returns trailer has close to a million views at the time of writing:
Published by the KH Studio YouTube channel on April 28, 2024, the trailer features old footage from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It also brings back Gary Oldman using past footage.
Most importantly, it uses AI to recreate Christian Bale’s Batman in a scene. Per the trailer, his Bruce Wayne will take on Black Mask, whose footage has been rehashed from the DCEU movie Birds of Prey, in which Ewan McGregor played the part.
But sadly for fans who want it to be real, KH Studio is known for posting fake fan-made concept trailers. The Dark Knight Returns trailer is just another example of that and DC Studios have greenlighted no such Batman sequel.
Christopher Nolan is reportedly working on a remake of The Prisoner following Oppenheimer, and Bale is starring in The Bride, which is scheduled to arrive in 2025.
Instead, two other live-action Batman movies are currently in development. The first of those will be Matt Reeves’ The Batman 2. It will bring back Robert Pattinson’s Batman under DC’s Elseworlds banner in 2026.
The second, titled The Brave and the Bold, will be produced by James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios. Set in Gunn’s DCU, it will be released after his upcoming Superman movie and feature a new actor as Batman.
