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November 11, 2008

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Batman Sues Christopher Nolan Over Success Of The Dark Knight

It's not a dream or an imaginary story - The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan really is being sued by Batman over unauthorized use of the "Batman" name. But before we all start celebrating the first proof that, as we all suspected all along, let's face it, Bruce Wayne's troubled crimefighter is actually real, I should explain: the "Batman" in question is actually a little-known a city in Turkey. And they're pissed.

You may never have heard of Batman, the city. It's in southeast Turkey, and the home to the country's oldest oil refinery (built in 1955). Despite that, though, they're not having the greatest of times - Crime is up, as are suicides amongst women. Also, like everywhere else in the world, they're suffering from economic problems... which is where Christopher Nolan comes in:

“The royalty of the name ‘Batman’ belongs to us … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us,” [Mayor of Batman city, Hüseyin] Kalkan told the Doğan news agency... Mayor Kalkan, speaking to the Hürriyet Daily News and the Economic Review, said last year foreign media picked up on Batman and the city’s increasing suicide rates among women. He said a columnist asked why Batman’s mayor did not sue the movie Batman for royalties while struggling with economic problems. “We found this criticism right and started to look for legal possibilities of a case like that,” he said.

And so, Kalkan plans to sue not DC Comics, who own the character, nor Warner Bros., who own DC Comics, but Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight. I'd pretend that this would be a clash of the legal titans, but there's no way that this isn't going to get laughed out of court immediately. Which is almost a shame, really; just imagine the "Holy Lawsuit! Batman Goes To Court" we'll miss.

Via io9