Batman Writer: 'Occupy Similarities Coincidence'

The similarities between The Dark Knight Rises villain Bane and the Occupy protest movement were purely down to chance, the movie's creators have claimed.

Speaking to MTV News, co-writer David S Goyer insisted that the plot of the movie was not modelled on recent anti-capitalist protests.

He said: "It was just kind of luck that the themes we were dealing with in this film happened to coincide with the Occupy Wall Street, 99 percent thing. We couldn't have planned that.

"It just sort of happened. We try to make them as meaningful. Hopefully, they're sort of like a Greek myth that reflects back on what's happening in today's politics."

Meanwhile his fellow writer Jonathan Nolan explained why he thought his brother Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy was different to other superhero films.

"The thing about Bruce Wayne is that his superpower is money and rage," he said. "And there's something transformative about a normal person, not a guy who was born with some magical gift that he just discovers, but a person who decides to become something extraordinary.

"I think I always related to that. It's always been the key difference between a character like Batman and all the other characters in the DC pantheon.

"There are some great characters there, but this is the one I always kind of connected to the most.

"You had all kinds of science fiction and some fantasy throughout the Batman books through 70 years, but for the most part, we took the idea that this was a real guy in the real world and ran in that direction."

The movie has remained at the top of the US box office for the second weekend running - taking $64m in ticket sales while its nearest rival was Ice Age 4: Continental Drift with $13m.