Batman Influenced by Fight Club?

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read this post if you plan on seeing Batman Begins and you don’t want to know about the ending.

I was recently re-reading a section of Fight Club and I was struck by the similarities to the new Batman film. For those of you who aren’t concerned about spoilers, read more after the jump.

In the Batman film, Liam Neeson’s band of marauding ninjas plans to destroy Gotham. The city and American culture is too corrupt to continue and must be destroyed so that something better can grow in its place. I don’t remember the exact dialogue but those of you who have seen it know what I’m talking about.

Then, I come across this section of Fight Club in my re-reading: “It’s Project Mayhem that’s going to save the world. A cultural ice age. A prematurely induced dark age. Project Mayhem will force humanity to go dormant or into remission long enough for the Earth to recover… Like fight club does with clerks and box boys, Project Mayhem will break up civilization so we can make something better out of the world.”

The text goes on in a similar vein to many of Liam Neeson’s speeches in the Batman film. I guess this isn’t a new idea, it’s been floating around for a while. And I’m far from insinuating that Chris Nolan and his writing partner plagiarized Fight Club or anything. The crazy similarities just jumped out at me.