Legal Question in Entertainment Law in California

Re: Copyright

This is actually more a question of trademark law, than of copyright.

Trademark protection arises by virtue of USE in commerce.

The creation date of your script isn't the determining factor.

Bottom line... WB's film was put "in commerce" before your work.

Also... the original comic book featuring Batman was called The Dark Knight. Decades ago.

Just change your title and save yourself a boatload of money, it's not worth a fight you'll almost surely lose.

Re: Copyright

Titles can not be copyrighted, so there is no legal restriction on your use of the title. Likewise, there is no restriction on the makers of The Dark Knight movie using that title.

Usually, when you make a distribution deal for your finished film, distributors will require a producer to obtain a "title search" report which shows all the uses of that particular title in all media. This does not prevent the re-use of the title, but gives the distributor warning of any conflicts.

It does happen occasionally that more than one movie comes out with the same or similar titles, and the distributor of the later film makes a business decision to release the film in spite of that. Generally, though, marketers of films want to have a distinctive title to avoid confusion in the marketplace.

If you are at the funding stage, it is premature for anyone to be worrying about a possible conflict, and certainly you shouldn't feel pressure to change at this early stage. Most pictures change their titles at least once or twice from the time development begins and the time they are released.