Huseyin Kalkan, the mayor of Batman, has accused "The Dark Knight" producers of using the city's name without permission."There is only one Batman in the world," Kalkan said. "The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."
Needless to say there was no litigation in 1939 when Batman first appeared as a comic, none when the campy tv show started in 1966 and none when the first film version came out in 1989. (Could the litigation be related to the fact that The Dark Knight is about to pass the $1 billion mark at the box office?
The mayor is prepping a series of charges against Nolan and Warner Bros., which owns the right to the Batman character, including placing the blame for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the psychological impact that the film's success has had on the city's inhabitants. The mayor is working on gathering evidence he claims will show that the city of Batman predates the 1939 debut of Batman in DC Comics.(!!!)
"We are only aware of this claim via press reports and have not seen any actual legal action," according to a Warner Bros statement...
I have no idea if this is a spoof or not but I do love a bit of frivolous litigation!
