Sadly for Batman fans, Christopher Nolan's vision for the franchise seemed to take a wrong turn after The Dark Knight.
Many put it down to Heath Ledger's outstanding performance as The Joker, suggesting there was no way the the following film could have lived up to the expectation. They believe that the character was so good that later films could never have come close.
For a lot of people, The Dark Knight Rises raises the question of what could have been.
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Heath Ledger's death reportedly changed what the final installment in the series would have been like, as The Joker was originally supposed to return. It's no mystery as to why this was sacked off - for one, it's quite insensitive, and two, whoever picked up the role would have quite the shoes to fill.
Credit: Warner Bros.
"The next one would have Batman enlisting the aid of Gordon and Harvey Dent in bringing down The Joker... but not killing him, which is a mistake they made in the first one," writer David Goyer said back in 2005, describing an early draft of what would become The Dark Knight.
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He then suggested that a third installment of the franchise would see The Joker 'go on trial', alongside the transformation of Harvey Dent into the villainous Two-Face.
In fact, Two-Face was supposed to have a starring role in this original vision of the third film, but a series of changes stopped this from happening.
MoviePlot reports that The Dark Knight's ending would have gone something along the lines of The Joker finding himself in prison, while Gordon, Dent and Bats all celebrated in their usual, light-hearted fashion.
Eventually, when a third film came along though, it would have been based around The Joker vs Two-Face in the courtroom, before the former's escape led to a back-and-forth between the pair across the film.
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Although this didn't happen, we did get Tom Hardy as Bane, so at least that was good.
Credit: Warner Bros.
Nolan, reportedly, was fairly uninterested in making a third film, which could explain a lot of the misfires within it.
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"Christopher Nolan's work with Heath Ledger resulted in a close friendship between them, and an immense respect and love for what Mr. Ledger did in bringing The Joker to life in the film," Forbes' Mark Hughes said at the time.
"From that, there was - again, according to some people who worked on the film - a very broad and general sense that IF a third film was made, then whatever else it was about, Heath Ledger would probably be asked to come back and reprise his role as The Joker in some form or fashion."
Aaron Eckhart, who played Two-Face in The Dark Knight, also knew that he wouldn't be in the film, saying in 2008: "No, I'm not coming back. I think unfortunately, Heath [Ledger] was supposed to go on and that didn't work out. I'm nobody. I'm a cog. I have no say over this sort of stuff."