Robert Eggers’ remake of Nosferatu was the horror hit of the winter season. It received rave reviews from critics and fans, and made over $166 million at the global box office. But did you know that the Gothic vampire tale drew inspiration from a Batman movie? It’s ok if you didn’t know, because the director himself didn’t realize it himself until not too long ago. During an interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via Cinemablend), he said it only dawned on him when he recently popped on Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. Only then did he see a clear connection to his own film. Here’s what he had to say:
I was watching on one of these flights… I threw on Batman Returns and, like, snowy, gothic, atmosphere of that movie is, it’s quite like, shockingly similar to a lot of the stuff we were doing here, which is something that I never really considered at all. But Wayne Manor, like, doesn’t look a hell of a lot different than Grűnewald Manor. I have got to say except for falling apart. So that was kind of interesting.
Queue up the art house cinema double features of Nosferatu and Batman Returns we’ll see for all time now. Tim Burton’s second Batman movie was extremely controversial in its day. With his second time at the helm, Burton really leaned into his Gothic sensibilities. Parents complained that it was “too dark,” and McDonald’s yanked their Happy Meal toy promotions. Funnily enough, there’s actually a direct link from the original 1922 Nosferatu to Batman Returns. Tim Burton named Christopher Walken’s villainous CEO character Max Shreck after the actor who first portrayed Count Orlok.
All of that aside, German expressionist cinema of the ’20s, like Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari clearly inspired Batman Returns‘ art direction. So it makes perfect sense that Batman Returns would influence Eggers’ Nosferatu in return. Based on his recent comments about having no desire to direct a film set in modern times, we’ll likely never see a Robert Eggers Batman film. But these comments sure make us daydream about an adaptation of the 19th-century Victorian-era Batman comic Gotham by Gaslight, directed by Eggers. Set in snowy winter this time, of course. We can dream.