Christopher Nolan Refused to have 'Paint It Black' in Any of the Dark Knight Trailers

2018 marks the 10th anniversary of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, and we've been getting some very interesting revelations about the movie this year. Talking to Reddit, Christopher Nolan's brother and Dark Knight co-writer Jonathan Nolan reveals that he wanted to have Paint in Black playing in at least one of the trailers, but his brother ultimately vetoed the idea.

Jonathan Nolan explains:

I worked in the movies for years with my brother and he was never very keen on using popular music. Which I totally get. The music he was creating for the films with Hans was so beautiful and purpose built for each moment that it didn't need any help. But I would always have suggestions and thoughts for what music we could be using. I write listening to music (Lisa doesn't -- every writer is different) and I would have these extensive lists of things I thought would work. One example -- I tried for ten years to convince Chris to do a trailer for one of our Batman films using Paint it Black. It's an iconic song, and it's been used before, and I understood why he wasn't interested.

Funnily enough, Jonathan Nolan got to have his own series on HBO—Westworld— and he was eventually able to use a version of Paint It Black during the heist scene at the Mariposa. Nolan must have liked Paint It Black so much because he used the same song for the Mariposa heist in Shogunworld in the second season as well.

Sure it would be fun to have more familiar songs in Nolan films, but I think having them out contributes to the feeling of timelessness of each Nolan movie. Probably the only song I remember from a Nolan movie is Edit Piaf's Non je ne regrette rien, and that song came out in 1960.

Either way, The Dark Knight is still amazing, and I don't know how an inclusion of Paint It Black may have helped in any way.

See Also: Jonathan Nolan: No One Understood Why Christopher Nolan Wanted Heath Ledger as the Joker