With Bruce faking his death and retiring again with Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) at the end of The Dark Knight Rises, that indicates that Bruce was actively Batman for somewhere between 12 and 18 months.
Batman was a brief event in Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy – a very different take compared to the comics. Bruce Wayne returns as Batman to fight Bane, but he is easily defeated. Bruce spent the next five months in Bane's Pit, while Bane and the League of Shadows were waiting for the bomb to explode in Gotham.
The Dark Knight Rises defied the expectations of fans and audiences by having Batman retire at the end of the film instead of killing him off, and there's a very easy explanation as to why.
If you remember this scene from “The Dark Knight”, Harvey Dent said that “Whoever the Batman is, he knows he cannot do this forever. Maybe, he is looking for someone who can take his place.” And this is the exact reason why Batman/Bruce Wayne disappeared at the end of “The Dark Knight Rises”.
How long was Batman retired for in the Dark Knight Returns?
The Dark Knight Returns is set in a dystopian version of Gotham City in 1986. Bruce Wayne, aged 55, has given up the mantle of Batman after the death of Jason Todd ten years prior.
After the second Robin, Jason Todd was murdered, Bruce Wayne retired from being Batman and chose to live a regular life. Ten years later, a 55 year old Bruce Wayne tried to get his thrills in other ways such as Formula racing, driving a black car.
None of these came to pass, however, as made exceedingly clear in the first seconds of Bale's introduction in The Dark Knight Rises. Eight years have passed in the film's narrative since last we saw our hero, and Bruce is now disheveled and broken, haunted by ghosts while living like one in the shadows of Wayne Manor.
2008's The Dark Knight takes place one year after Batman Begins, so that would make Bale 34 playing 31. However, there's an about eight-year time gap between Dark Knight and 2012's The Dark Knight Rises, making Bruce 39 going on 40.
Speaking to Toronto Sun in 2019, Bale shared that both he and Nolan had a "one film at a time" mentality when developing the Dark Knight franchise, and also revealed that Nolan often mentioned that, should they be "fortunate [enough] to be able to make three," they would stop.
However, both Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale have cemented the face-value interpretation that Batman actually survived the events of The Dark Knight Rises, with Bruce faking his own death to finally live a peaceful life.
And since The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises are both within the top 50 highest-grossing movies of all time, a fourth movie would've done incredibly well. However, Nolan chose to stop at a trilogy and expressed no interest in returning to the franchise.
Probably the most physically-suited actor to date to play Batman/Bruce Wayne, Ben Affleck (age 43 when he first portrayed Batman) is the oldest to portray the character.
Katie Holmes had nothing against Rachel Dawes or Nolan's Batman trilogy; she simply had the desire to explore other roles at the time. In fact, instead of returning as Rachel Dawes for The Dark Knight, she appeared as Jackie Truman in Mad Money.
In most Batman adaptations, Bruce leaves Gotham city at 18 and returns as Batman around the age of 25. This would make Joker over 50 when Bruce returns, which is a little old for a chaos-causing crime boss.
How long was Batman away in The Dark Knight Rises?
Eight years after the Joker's reign of chaos, Batman is coerced out of exile with the assistance of the mysterious Selina Kyle in order to defend Gotham City from the vicious guerrilla terrorist Bane.
After Bane helped Talia al Ghul escape from the Pit, he was attacked by prisoners. However, a doctor failed to treat him and left him in chronic pain. Out of gratitude for saving his daughter, Ra's al Ghul liberated Bane from the Pit and provided him with a crude prototype mask to numb his pain.
Each of the Dark Knight Trilogy films were intended to be set in the year they were released, with Batman Begins meant to take place in 2005, The Dark Knight being set in 2008, and The Dark Knight Rises taking place from 2012 to 2013. However, only The Dark Knight visibly gives a date for the films' events: July 2008.
So assuming he hangs his boots up and assuming he's not irradiated, we would estimate that he'll live to at least age 90, which is our forecast for average life expectancy. However, he could also easily live to 95 based on the fact that he's smart, fit and wealthy and at some point likely to meet the 'right woman'.
Has Batman Broken His No Killing Rule Since? Batman stopped killing in 1940, but there's no denying that there have been stories since then, usually non-canonical, that have seen him bend or break his rule against killing.
