Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is formed by Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, this last one bringing Bruce’s story to a close but also drawing a lot of controversy.
In the end, these universes stayed separate, with Nolan’s universe keeping its essence intact, but had they been linked somehow, the end of The Dark Knight Rises would have improved. Snyder explained it would have been interesting to have these two universes connected as that would have meant Batman in the DCEU would have had to be Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Speaking to Josh Horowitz in his Happy Sad Confused podcast, Snyder was asked if a crossover with the Dark Knight trilogy was ever considered while developing Man of Steel, to which he replied that it “ was not 100% off the table” and there were talks about it.
In May 2021, Zack Snyder shared that the DCEU could have been connected to the Nolanverse thanks to Man of Steel.
Related: What Each Dark Knight Trilogy Movie Really Represents Although the Dark Knight trilogy was a big influence in the making of the DCEU, these two universes are separate from each other, but at one point, they were close to being part of the same. Nolan’s take on the famous DC Comics vigilante revived interest in him after the failure of Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin in the 1990s and brought Bruce Wayne and company to a darker yet realistic Gotham City, far from the comic book-y tone of Tim Burton and Schumacher’s movies. Unfortunately, Affleck’s Batman didn’t quite connect with the audience, who still had in mind the previous version of the Caped Crusader and who was a big success with critics and fans: Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Of course, the DCEU had its own version of Batman, who made his debut in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, played by Ben Affleck. DC’s connected universe on the big screen began in 2013 with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, which introduced Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Superman and set the tone for the rest of the movies. The superhero genre has gained force in the last decade thanks to connected universes like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DCEU, but the latter has had to go through some big changes over the years. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy could have been linked to DC’s Extended Universe, and this would have made The Dark Knight Rises’ controversial ending a lot better.