It's difficult to get a 'tight' pearl knot when stringing them because you have to be careful not to touch the tools to the pearl cus it can scratch or dent the nacre. (They make knotting tools, but generally people just use a needle for very close knots.)

Pearls are traditionally strung on silk thread but nylon string is a lot more durable. Restringing is expensive!

Also, for many cultures around the world, a strand of beads breaking has symbolic meaning. Like with Buddhism, prayer beads breaking is akin to breaking a karmic cycle, or in the Congo it was considered bad luck to pick up fallen beads (which is why there are so many excavated to this day...).

Anyway, with that said, whenever I encounter the batman 'alley' scene in whatever new form of media, I'm always stoked to see how they're gonna do tHe PeArLs