Could A Batman Film Work With Tights

[Seantastic]

Yea, could Batman ever have a film, a serious film with him wearing tights as opposed to the black rubber suit?  Batman is the only hero really to have his costume changed pretty drastically for a film.
I actually would like to see it, and think it would work, but then again, maybe it wouldn't and we'd just be stuck with laughter from audiences.

[phantom stranger]

It's an interesting question as I grew up with both Keaton's Batman and Adam West's Batman almost simultaneously. I accepted both as Batman, and didn't recognize the impact that Keaton's costume had at the time.

I think the tights can work, depending on how they're filmed. Sandy Collora's excellent fan-films proved that the gray suit isn't necessarily an anachronism. Of course, it helps that the actor was a beast...




Still, I'm of the mind that perhaps this is an analogous situation to Spider-Man's organic web-shooters (first introduced in James Cameron's canceled Spider-Man project). While the organic web-shooters aren't true to the comics, they are arguably more "true" to the character. So perhaps it's the same thing with the black armor suit. While it's not how Bob Kane envisioned the character, it just makes more sense, especially in the movies. 

[The Dark Knight]

The armour in the movies makes a ton of sense, and I see as it more true to the character. First off, it's a piece of technology for him, and it can be built and refined. Secondly, Batman is a skilled guy - mentally and physically. But he knows he's not invincible. If he had the choice between a skin tight shirt and a literal suit, he'd always pick the latter. The damage is going to be cut down significantly. Be it something small like cuts or something serious ala Bane's knee. It would also be a lot warmer.

[Azrael]

Good points about the armour suit PS and TDK.

I was introduced to the black-clad Batman - B89 was my first exposure to the character, and to me the sculpted black suit makes perfect sense not only because it's supposed to be protective armour, but from an aesthetic POV too: he wears this disguise to be scary and to blend into the shadows, black is the most obvious choice that makes sense.

The choice of black for Batman is so obvious that I suspect (thought I might be wrong, hehe) that the reason Bob Kane and Bill Finger gave him a grey bodysuit was because an all-black look wouldn't work very well on the printed page, especially with printing materials of that time and age. Maybe they did intend for him to be camouflaged in black. Just a silly assumption, ok?

With that said, I quite enjoy the grey tights, like the aforementioned Batman/Predators fanfilm. The only requirement is that the actor/stuntman has to be built like Conan (the barbarian, not O'Brien). One thing that disappointed me about the costumes in Batman Live was that Batman wears a (frankly ridiculous) silver/metallic armour type of thing, where this show could be a great opportunity to present a Batman with the comic book look.

[phantom stranger]

Also, for what it's worth, I know the gray suit in the comics is often referred to as being kevlar, or at least having some sort of armor within it. It just depends on who the writer is.

[The Dark Knight]

Given Bruce is a billionaire, if he wore a shirt and hadn't even considered building a suit, he would look mighty silly. That's the bottom line for me. Now, we don't need a long sermon about that in the film. It's an unspoken visual blatany that bubbles under the surface.