Christian Bale cited the groundbreaking Batman story Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth as an early, pivotal influence on his portrayal of the Caped Crusader in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Bale’s Batman is widely regarded as the best in cinema history, and Arkham Asylum helped define the actor’s understanding of his character.

In an old interview clip that resurfaced on Reddit, Bale explained how Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum helped convince him he needed to play Batman.

A Serious House on Serious Earth routinely ranks among the best Batman stories of all time, and it has influenced practically every subsequent Batman book, in addition to Nolan’s movies.

Christian Bale Cites “Arkham Asylum” As The Batman Comic That Made Him Want To Play Batman

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth By Grant Morrison And Dave McKean; Published In 1989

A Serious House on Serious Earth was the book that established future legend Grant Morrison as a rising star in the comic book industry. Morrison and artist Dave McKean pushed the boundaries of what a Batman story could be, and moreover, what one could look like, in ways never done before, and rarely matched since.

In other words, no other Batman stories feel, or look, like Arkham Asylum. The book’s aesthetic and thematic content have captivated generations of readers, Christian Bale among them. In fact, it is possible that without A Serious House on Serious Earth, moviegoers might never have gotten Bale’s take on the hero.

As Bale explained in an interview, circa Batman Begins’ release:

Before I read the script, I had been given a graphic novel, Arkham Asylum, and I was really surprised. I’d never been a comic book fan or anything, and I was never particularly a Batman fan. So I kind of begrudgingly read this Arkham Asylum and I thought it was fantastic.

His positive response to Arkham Asylum, in turn, prompted the actor to read more Batman comics, including Year One and others, which cemented in his mind that he had to play the hero. The rest, as they say, is history.

“A Serious House On Serious Earth” Made Christian Bale A Batman Fan, Allowing The Dark Knight Films To Happen

Ron Phillips/Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

The debate about the best cinematic Batman can never truly be settled, but Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale version of the hero is especially lauded for its fidelity to the source material, in spirit, if not in terms of directly adapting stories. It captured the core virtues of the character in the same way the best comic stories do.

The Dark Knight trilogy doesn’t feel like Arkham Asylum, exactly, but knowing it was an early influence shows how the films took shape. Serious is perhaps the operative word here. Whereas the Batman films that preceded Nolan’s movies leaned into the campier aspects of the character, Nolan and Bale took the franchise seriously, just as Morrison’s story did.

Ultimately, though, what makes Arkham Asylum foundational to The Dark Knight trilogy is that it captured Christian Bale’s imagination as a reader, and made him understand why Batman is such an epochal character in popular culture. This made him understand the gravity of playing Batman, a role he lived up to spectacularly.

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Bob Kane, Bill Finger

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