Your subjective spin. A millionaire whose parents were killed, who devotes his life to fighting crime and works out of a batcave are concepts over 5 decades old.
As I said, old concepts with a modern twist added on. But essentially, an old concept. It was an old concept in 1989 when Tim Burton did his first Batman movie. It was an old concept, brought back to its 1940s roots, when Neal Adams and Dennis O'Neil did their first Batman story together (DETECTIVE 395) in 1969.
Again, what part of plain english do you not understand?
Yes, it's an old concept. It's a very old concept. But you can't deny that the movie is a lot darker than most superhero movies... it's darker than every Punisher film ever made. It's darker than most adaptations of new material. And it's certainly darker than every single example you provided in your post about "superhero movies that have done well" (conveniently neglecting to mention Bat-Man)...
...and it has done much, much better than all of them.
Again... have you seen the movie?
I described the movie when it came out as the most mature movie portrayal of a superhero possible. But despite that I mostly liked it, it ultimately came across as pretentious and silly. I also described it as typical of comics in that it was (despite running two-plus hours) unrelentingly serious and had absolutely no comic relief. And in that respect representative of the current pretentious/overly-serious comic book market.
But again, the basic concepts remain the same as 40-50 years ago, with some modern conventions added on. Hower dark, Batman's still the hero, and remains an essentially pure counterweight to the purely evil Joker.
I found myself wishing Osama Bin Ladin and other Al Qaida members saw the movie, so they could see in themselves the archetype of pure evil in their wanton slaughter of innocents in the pursuit of pure chaos, and their total lack of regard for human life. However you try to spin it, this movie is a far cry from the anti-heroes of Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis and other modern writers. For all the dark elements, Batman remains an uncorruptable heroic icon, in the classic mold, with only superficial modern add-ons to the concept.
