Abstract

The contemporary Hollywood industry is increasing its modes of production and advertising strategies that aspire to replicate the types of consumer dynamics that sustain prolonged engagements with textual commodities, such as those relationships between fan communities and popular properties. As a popular, presold property, Batman has had an extensive production history with a plethora of intertextual variations that engage consumers in a variety of ways. This study analyzes how this property maintains a quality engagement with fans and allows successful filmic adaptations such as Tim Burton's Batman (1989), and Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008), to serve as historical markers of Hollywood production. The recognizability of the property is examined to expose those qualities that enable the proliferation of the adapted property throughout its many channels of delivery. The study shows a consistent structural component of adaptation that permits the variety of Batman intertexts to both register with the diversity of consumers while simultaneously remaining identifiable as a coherent brand: tone. The branded qualities of Batman are then analyzed in relation to extra-narrative production concerns, such as advertisement and third-party tie-ins, to determine how non-narrative based renditions of the character can maintain factors of recognizability, regardless of aesthetic variation. Finally, new advertising technologies that enable and increase fan communities will be discussed in relation to the sustainability and reinforcement of brand identification. This thesis demonstrates that tone - as a consistent structural component of adaptation - can maintain these branding interests across media forms