Christian Bale: The Dark Knight was always meant to be a trilogy

Christian Bale says 'The Dark Knight' series was limited to three movies because it was Christopher Nolan's goal to make a trilogy.

The 'Le Mans '66' star played 'Batman' in three films between 2005 and 2012 but admits that director Christopher Nolan never considered making more films, because he never thought he'd get the "opportunity" to create more.

In an interview with the Toronto Sun newspaper, Christian said: "We knew we had to reinvent it. I literally had people laugh at me when I told them we were doing a new kind of Batman. I think that the reason I worked was first and foremost Chris' take on it.

"But also we never were arrogant to assume that we had an opportunity beyond one film at a time. That's something that Chris always would talk about. He'd say, 'This is it. We're making one film. That's all we've got.' Then when they came and said, 'You want to go make another?' It was fantastic, but we still said, 'This is it. We will never get another opportunity.'

"Then they came and they said, 'OK, let's do a third one.' Chris had always said to me that if we were fortunate to be able to make three we would stop."

Christian, 45, also revealed that he supported Christopher's creative vision, even though the pair were approached to make a fourth film.

He explained: "They inevitably came to us and said, 'How about a No.4?' I said, 'No. We have to stick to Chris' dream, which was always to, hopefully, do a trilogy. Let's not stretch too far and become overindulgent and go a fourth.

"That's why we, well Chris, stepped away. After that I was informed my services were no longer required."