I can't reveal my friend's identity, as he'll only end up getting fired. But trust me, in 10 years time, every franchise we grew up with is going to be starring Shia. Instead of playing Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon, we'll play One Degree of Separation from Shia...he'll be THAT eponymous.

Starring in Batman Something---whatever, just make that movie with these women--don't matter if Bales or Borgnine plays the bat...

Ian McShane as the Penguin

Joseph Goden Levitt as an makeup free Joker

Scarlett Johansenn as Harley Quinn

Batman is clearly a lucrative franchise for Warner Bros. As with the comics, there could be multiple film iterations - interpretations - of Batman, with a new Batman adventure in theaters every summer.

I say bring back Burton and Keaton for one final romp through the nuthouse and then give Aronofsky and Rourke the keys to Wayne Manor until Nolan is ready to take another swing at it.

Batman is clearly a lucrative franchise for Warner Bros. As with the comics, there could be multiple film iterations - interpretations - of Batman, with a new Batman adventure in theaters every summer.

I say bring back Burton and Keaton for one final romp through the nuthouse and then give Aronofsky and Rourke the keys to Wayne Manor until Nolan is ready to take another swing at it.

And oh yeah. Eastwood would NEVER do it.

In fact, the only idea worse than that is Clint Eastwood as Batman. Seriously, who the fuck would, in their own minds, actually allow the icon Eastwood to "become" Batman/Wayne while watching the movie? You wouldn't for an instant stop believing that Clint was anyone else but Clint. Clint in a tux. Clint in a funny mask-helmet with pointy ears. Clint punching an old man in clown make-up.

Geek, please.

SEE WHAT I DID THERE? I MADE SHIT UP!

Harry, you're a cock. All you do on this fucking site is post complete bullshit and rumour. I'll give you this, you do get the occasional AICN EXCLUSIVE about your impending stomach-stapling or your choice to go contacts over glasses. Fascinating stuff.

Jettison Bale. Yes, jettison the star of the critical darling and the second highest grossing film of all time. Jettison him in favor of leaving the current story incomplete. Jettison him in favor of telling the story of a decrepit old man in a rubber suit. Next you'll be telling everyone they should jettison Downey Jr from Iron Man 2 in favor of telling the story of a broken down, rusted, dented junkheap. And have him played by Warren Beatty.

Practice what you preach, Harry. If you want to complain about other websites, you need to stop posting bullshit rumours yourself.

Kurt Lockwood, where are you, man? Confirm this!

Rourke as Batman is ridiculous.

Here's how it works: Bats on the run from the cops. Riddler shows up, but we play him dour and serious (i.e. anti-Joker) ... he's just compelled to send clues to the police. Bats is in full-bore detective mode. Riddler is doing three things, though: besides his own clues, he's trying to get the police to Batman, and he's also setting up a second villain who we won't even see in this film ('You didn't solve all the clues' 'What do you mean?' 'When you figure it out, it'll send a chill up your spine'). So we have a dance of Bats vs Cops vs Riddler. I think it can work, but obviously it needs to be written very well.

ok, here's a freeby

The penguin - a fat grot of a man - womanizer, but rich and powerful and able to start bringing crime back to gotham. Bruce wayne/batman is torn whether he should bring down the penguin because while he's bringing crime back to gotham, he's also bringing business to wayne enterprise somehow. or he's opening up channels to crime lords batman and the police were not able to get hold of before.

meanwhile, the penguin employs the riddler as a decoy to trap batman so that penguin can uncover his true identity. which he does!

meanwhile, bruce is still pining over rachel. but as batman he's taken an interest in a mysterious cat-woman. and in this movie we see nothing of her origins or even her alternate persona. she's as mysterious as the headlines say and batman become obsessed with tracking her down.

The riddler, however, starts taking his job too seriously and makes batman a riddled offer against the penguin.

in all this, batman is tracked down by robin. a kid about 14 who wants to be batmans side kick. but batman is just not interested. THAT can be the extent of robin. crappy old costume and all

so thats something, no?

The truth is you've never shown much enthusiasm for Nolan's contribution to Batman cinema. You've been fair enough to give the films good reviews but you've always seemed generally reserved about them. Would you really jettison Christian Bale, the star who has finally brought the franchise critical credibility and secured a place for Batman in cinema history? Are you that eager to toss this Batman interpretation into the dustbin?

Oh fuck me that is hilarious. The fact that The Spirit drops the same year as The Dark Knight......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA .

Willem DeFoe as the Joker.

Some kid actress as the Girl Robin (I think her name was Carrie)

And because I think he's %$#@ing great, Gary Oldman in old age stipple make-up as Gordon.

Now, who to play the older Selina Kyle? Hmmm.

Ok, go with me here... if the Batsuit included something along the lines of some sort of Mission Impossible style voice modifier, it would help you accept the change in voice and also the when he's alone with people who know his true identity.

Nolan went to pains to explain the gadgets in Begins. He could've addressed this easily.

The whole "CHARACTER" concept of Bruce immersing himself in the Batman persona is interesting-- yet very hard to achieve on screen. It may work in print but thats just sort of assinine to expect the audience to go along with you on that unless you really wanted to push him into the INSANE territory.

Its not the growl or the tone. I get that-- its the drawn out words and the volume that bug the fuck out of me

"WHERE IS HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?!!! SOMEBOOOOOOOOOOOOOODY KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WS!!"

And in response to the poster about Batman being gay-- you don't have to be gay to admire Aaron's hair.

Batman gets the shit beat out of him. He questions his very existence. He can't get it up. The Riddler shows up at the end. He's one serious motherfucker, played by Jim Carrey. Continuity, you scumbags.

Riddler - Steve Buscemi, Crispin Glover, Norm Macdonald, or Jeff Goldblum

Catwoman - Carice Van Houten or Rhona Mitra (because my unmentionables would like it)

Penguin - Larry David (someone suggested this a while ago), Toby Jones

If you can get Michael Ironside or Michael Wincott in there somewere I'd also be happy.

Print this, laminate it (so your tiny wad doesn't do any permanent damage) and have a very Merry Christmas!!

http://tinyurl.com/4jqeyv

Every time he says "LOOK AT ME!" I always say to my buddies, "hey, is Batman there?"

But we need this type of villain..based in reality with any eccentricity justified by actual lunacy but not over the top flamboyant or, for lack of better words, too "comic book villain"-y. Pfiefer Catwoman was certainly pleasant to look at but would be an exceedingly distracting character in Nolan's Batman. Overall, to me a Catwoman character is sort of like the Robin character, more tongue and cheek and more levity in an otherwise very dark universe (Batman, Dark Knight, etc); you DC purist would know better than me on this but wasn't Robin added later on when there was "complaints" about Batman being to dark and brutal? So they brought in some doofy boy scout live in boyservant nonsense that couldn't EVER fly in our modern culture?)

The Joker fits perfectly in that Nolan Batman world but these others are far too day-glo or far too distracting in and of themselves.

Catwoman or Robin added to Nolan's franchise would deflate the entire thing within 10 seconds of screen time. Only a singular work of brillinace could get these characters on the screen in any way not even a little laughable. And I just hate the idea of the Robin character almost completely. Just dumb and far too ambiguously gay in the 21st century.

However....Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the perfect Penguin and I've always thought Brad Douriff would have made an excellent Riddler and still could even if he's a bit older(better than Carey, for sure) and he's a brilliant actor too...he's gotta be younger than Nicholson when he did his Joker version...

But I stick by my theory that any of the more "cartoony" Batman/DC villains in Nolan's Batman would be a terrible distraction. Fortunately, my guess is Nolan et al, are fully aware of this and won't gutterball it. Rachel Weiz is very beautiful and very talented and who wouldn't want to watch her slink around in skin tight leather...but the character of Catwoman has no place in Nolan's Batman. Penguin might work but not Meredith nor Devito's penguin...Hoffman is perfect casting but how to actually portray the character...that's the tricky part. This isn't Spiderman where a cartoonish villain can work...these are crime dramas that happen to have costumed heroes and villains...I have trust in Nolan...he's obviously earned it...but my guess is Nolan probably will pull out of doing a 3rd film due to all of the problems with coming up with a good progressive story character-wise and not just another notch in the belt with some big named actor showing up as the draw instead of a great story and the desire to find out what is happeneing with these characters, etc...

"Not on my watch, you Nazi robot!"

"You're right."

"I can see that!!"

"I'll kill him!!!!"

A: Fill her cunt with shit.

And I'm sure that there is plenty of real-life inspiration out there that is just RIPE for the taking.

You're one of these twats that walk around whining "BUT COMIC BOOKS ARE ART! WAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" Oh fuck off.

Also, I love the TV show, and want it on DVD ASAP, but it is a genius comedy and does not include the inherent darkness of the character.

So the movie starts like 10 years after the events of TDK, and Gotham is heading for another crime wave, which forces Bruce to resurrect Batman. Now... This scenario gives you justification to re-cast the Joker without screwing up the continuity or fucking up anything Ledger built up in TDK. Hell, you could even justify changing Joker's personality (doing something else than what Heath did) by putting him in Arkham for 10 years...

Daydreaming is so fun.

It will never happen, but damn...think of it. Darren Aronofsky came *this* close to helming BATMAN BEGINS. Him and Rourke teaming up to do THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, tying up the loose ends and finishing the series as a perfect story arc trilogy?

I mean, why WOULDN'T they hand over a billion dollar franchise to you?!