IN AN unprecedented lawsuit against a Hollywood studio, the mayor of Batman, an oil-producing city in southeastern Turkey, is suing Warner Bros, along with Christopher Nolan, the director of the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight.
Huseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of Batman, has accused the film's producers of using the city's name without permission. He is seeking a share of the film's substantial royalties as compensation.
"There is only one Batman in the world," Mr Kalkan said. "The American producers used the name of our city without informing us."
The mayor is preparing a series of charges against Mr Nolan and Warner Bros, which owns the film rights to the Batman character. These include placing the blame for a number of unsolved murders and a high suicide rate for women on the psychological impact that the film's success has had on the city's inhabitants.
Former natives of Batman are also said to have encountered obstacles when attempting to register their businesses abroad.
One of the many unusual aspects of the lawsuit is that the city has taken so long to bring the case. Batman first appeared as a comic book character in 1939 and the Batman TV series started in 1966.
Warner Bros has produced six big-budget Batman movies since 1989. The title character has been played by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney and, most recently, Christian Bale.
The latest film, The Dark Knight, has been the most successful in the lucrative series and it has taken just under one billion dollars at cinemas around the world since it was released in July.
The leading film trade paper, Variety, remarked yesterday that the huge takings by the new film "undoubtedly played a part in stirring the ire of the Turkish hamlet".
However, the mayor of Batman is said to be gathering evidence he claims will show that the city of Batman predates the 1939 debut of the Caped Crusader in DC Comics.
"We are only aware of this claim via press reports and have not seen any actual legal action," a Warner Bros representative said in a statement yesterday.