I can honestly say I had no idea that in southeastern Turkey lies a city called Batman. Beyond that interesting bit of coincidence is the comically bizarre. It's mayor is suing Warner Brothers for royalties for misappropriating his cities name. Via Variety:
The mayor of an oil-producing city in southeastern Turkey, which has the same name as the Caped Crusader, is suing helmer Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. for royalties from mega-grosser "The Dark Knight."Reads like something out of the Onion, doesn't it?
Huseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party 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."
No one from the town of Batman has explained why it took so many years to take legal action. Batman first appeared as a comicbook character in 1939 and the "Batman" TV series started in 1966. Tim Burton's first bigscreen rendition for Warner Bros. came out in 1989. Undoubtedly the fact that "Dark Knight" is about to pass the $1 billion mark at the B.O. played a part in stirring the ire of the Turkish hamlet.
2 comments:
Then all those Indians who ironed the trousers of some British Gov'nuh over the course of the Empire should sue too, shouldn't they?
Interesting, and we have a Batman rail station in our City, located just several miles North of where we live in fact. Though I'm not going to lend and mileage to the suing argument .
http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/stop/view/19964
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