Batman: The Court of Owls

“The Court of Owls watches, watches all the time. Ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They see you at your hearth and they see you in your bed. Speak not a whisper word about them or they’ll send the Talon for your head!”

The Intro

Over Facebook yesterday I said that I would be writing a blog post about a comic book that I think needs to be brought to the big screen, and I though pretty hard about which story would look best on that screen. The first thing that came to my mind was which character to consider, and of course I thought of my favourite: Batman. Once I knew that Batman is my feature character, I looked over all my Batman comics and really thought which storyline would make a great movie. I looked over every storyline from “Batman: The killing Joke” to “Batman: Earth One”, but I always found myself turning back to one story line, “Batman: The Court of Owls”. It’s probably my favourite Batman storyline, which is probably the reason I picked it, however that doesn’t change the fact that it would make an amazing movie, and here my reasons why.

The Story

Batman the court

As I have already stated that this is my favourite Batman storyline, that is because it’s full of action and mythology. It’s all about Batman’s struggle to keep his city and his battle coming to the conclusion that he doesn’t own the city. This story has more to offer than good fight scenes, but a great plot line with depth, dialogue, and character development. This is also a story that provides aspects to Batman’s character that haven’t been really dealt with in past. We get the chance to see the side of Batman that actually shows that he is the world’s greatest detective.

Characters

bat-family

The supporting characters are probably the best part of this book. It has such a wide range of characters including the GCPD Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Bullock. It is interesting to see how Batman interacts with these characters even though we’ve seen it before. Some of the even more compelling characters are the people in the Bat-Family including Alfred, Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing. Especially the dynamic relationship and backstory we get between Batman and Nightwing. It is particularly interesting to see that they don’t always agree on everything, and that it’s not just Nightwing always following Batman’s commands. This relationship creates great dialogue, interesting story and character development. This is something that was missing from the previous Batman films. They were scared to give Batman a partner because the Schumacher films stunk, but just because something didn’t work before does not mean it can’t work now. I really believe giving Batman a partner that he fully trusts would create interesting dialogue and story on screen.

 The Villain 

Talon1

The court of owls and the Talon are truly frightening villains with some of the best assassins the DC world has to offer. They even give The League of Assassins a run for their money. They’re a villain that strikes fear into Batman, and they our a group that has plan that makes the characters realize that the stakes are high. A villain where the audience feel the threat and will actually fear that Batman might not make it out of this one alive. Where we feel Batman’s fear,anger and his dread. These all the reasons why the court of owls and the Talon adversary for Batman that will translate well on screen.

Conclusion

These are my thoughts on why I believe the court of Owls would make an amazing live action movie did you agree with me? what comic book would you like to see turned into a live action movie? leave your comments below.

All picture rights belong to DC comics.