Damn, Who Decided Wednesday Was Killer Big News Day?
Guys, some of us are trying to write reviews, features and DVD pieces, christ. Hot on the heels that Robert Rodriguez is off “Deadpool,” “The Hobbit” is confirmed for a New Zealand shoot and James Cameron has officially decided that his next two films will be “Avatar 2 & 3” comes some major news on Christopher Nolan‘s sequel to “The Dark Knight.”
Things you’ll be happy about? The comic book drama will not be shot in 3D which means it won’t likely have bad 3D post conversion either; Nolan’s one of the few directors that can demand this after the massive success of “The Dark Knight” and “Inception” (though he did consider 3D conversion for the latter, but decided against it). Things you might not be so happy about? One of the characters considered to be the frontrunner villain was the Riddler, but apparently, the enigmatic antagonist won’t be in the film. And lastly? There’s an official title too.
HeroComplex breaks this news and evidently the third ‘Batman‘ film will be called, “The Dark Knight Rises.” A wise title when you remember that “The Dark Knight” still holds the domestic record for third highest grossing film of all time (gotta keep ‘TDK’ in there somewhere). So who will the be villain? In an exclusive interview with the LAT, all Nolan allows is, “It won’t be the Riddler.” He added, cryptically, only revealing a handful of clues, “we’ll use many of the same characters as we have all along, and we’ll be introducing some new ones.” Evidently Dr. Freeze (a ridiculous choice anyhow played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the equally ridiculous 1997 disaster, “Batman & Robin“) has already been ruled out too.
Presumably by returning he means, Michael Caine as Alfred, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox (And Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman of course). Tom Hardy, the breakout star of “Inception” is the only new actor cast so far and many presume (including us), he’ll play the main antagonist. The writer of the L.A. Times pieces tries to posit, what if Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) isn’t dead? To which Nolan responds, “Oh, you know me, I don’t talk.” What Nolan does round-aboutly allude to that there is likely a signature villain from the comic books in the film (or at least that’s how we read the quote) when asked if Warner Bros. would allow him to use a villain not central to the comic books; though arguably he did that to some extent with “Batman Begins“.
That seems like a lame guess frankly, we expect a new world and new situations. Bringing back Dent is akin to the Death Star coming back in “Return Of The Jedi,,” and it’s far beneath Nolan. No other details are given. The script was written by Jonathan Nolan and David Goyerr based on a story idea by Goyer. “The Dark Knight Rises” is expected to shoot in April 2011 and is already slated for a July 20, 2012 release.
