Since there are already tons of seperate threads on Batman 3 rumors (some of them dating all the way back to 2008 before even The Dark Knight came out) I figured why not start an official Batman 3 thread and keep everything in one place from now on. Especially since Warner Brothers has officially announced that the Batman 3 release date is July 20, 2012 and just yesterday Michael Caine (Alfred) told reporters that production on the film is set to begin in April 11th.

Because there's so little real news and a ton of rumors (remember Cher as Catwoman and Eddie Murphy as The Riddler?), I'll do a quick run down of things we know already and also very strong rumors from good sources. We should start to get a lot more news in the next few weeks such as confirmed casting and also which characters will/won't be in the film as Nolan doesn't like to talk about future projects until he's done promoting the movie (in this case Inception) he had been working on which comes out tomorrow.

What we know:
-Production begins in April '11 for a release date of July 20, 2012
-Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer (same 3 guys that wrote Batman Begins & The Dark Knight) are currently working on the script
-The Joker character will not be recast
-Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman all have contracts for a 3rd film (but none are officially confirmed yet)
-The Batman crew has been scouting locations in both Chicago and London
-Aaron Eckhart signed a 2 movie deal and although Nolan has confirmed multiple times that Harvey Dent/Two Face did die at the end of The Dark Knight that doesn't mean Harvey won't make a cameo in a flash back but nothing is official
-This is most likely Nolan's last Batman film as he has stated in dozens of interviews he wanted to make a Batman trilogy and he and his writing team have come up was an ending for his series

Very strong rumors:
-The Catwoman is almost a lock to be in the 3rd film as Bruce/Batman's love interest
-No Robin, Mr. Freeze or another superheroes such as Superman will be in this movie

In my opinion if you want solid Batman 3 news head to batmanonfilm.com, that place is an awesome site and the owner of the site has a lot of solid sources and in the past has broken a lot of casting and other news in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. That site, however, will not post any spoilers so if you're looking for a leaked script or plot details you won't find it there.

Anyway I know we have a lot of Batman fans on this site so hopefully we can keep this thread strong up until and through Batman 3's release date. So feel free to post any thoughts, rumors, news and hopefully in a year or so pictures from the set! Enjoy.

 

Having Catwoman in the next film makes sense. With Rachel dead, Bruce/Batman needs a new love interest. I believe Rachel Weiss is the front runner to land the role.

Agreed that game is going to be great.

 

While I could have done without the Bruce/Rachel love story in Batman Begins, it was an important part of The Dark Knight and the Bruce/Catwoman relationship is pretty important to the Batman mythos. I am interested in seeing what Nolan will do with the character and how he deals with Bruce since Rachel's death.

If you remember in The Dark Knight at the end when Batman and Gordon are talking, Gordon mentions that there are 5 dead, including 2 cops, because of Harvey Dent which Batman ends up taking the blame for to keep Harvey's name good. We only saw Dent kill the dirty detective Wertz and if we assume that Maroni and the driver died too, that leaves 2 people unaccounted for. Chris Nolan was asked about that specifically during a Q&A back when TDK came out and he mentioned that the viewer wasn't suppose to know and that it could possibly be explored in the 3rd film, which lead a lot of people to speculate that Harvey Dent would be back in B3 in a flashback.

 

Yeah he'd be great in the rumored Riddler as a serial killer/Seven type role. I still wouldn't be surprised if Nolan created a totally new villain or decided to use a lesser known (for the average fan) villain.

I could see the Penguin making a small cameo as an arms dealer for the mob or as the head of it, especially since he was in early scripts of Batman Begins and TDK in that role.

 

Outside of The Joker, Catwoman is the probably the most important villain to Batman and I think there are a lot of ways Nolan can take both characters. There's plenty of time for the relationship to start and evolve. Just look at Harvey Dent's character in the 2 and a half hours Nolan gave the viewer a roller coast ride of emotions of Dent's evolution into Two Face. Something like that could have felt rushed or fell flat but he handled that character perfectly.

I also think it's important that we see Bruce developing a new relationship after Rachel's death and to see how he's evolving as both Bruce and Batman and how the events of TDK have changed him.

 

Catwoman wouldn't be the only villain in the movie though. The character would probably be a tweener anyway doing both good and bad.

Disagree about the Rachel character, the character was important to Bruce in BB and while yes her character was more important to Harvey in TDK you couldn't just sub out the Rachel character with 'Female Lead X' because her death did affect Bruce (even if there was only 2 scenes in which it shows he was affected by it) and I'm guessing that that will be explored futher in 'B3'. Also I think it had more of an impact that a character we already knew from the 1st film and half of the 2nd was killed off. If it was just a random new character introduced in TDK the viewer wouldn't have had a lot of the emotion since we knew Rachel's character better. Also let's not forget that Bruce in TDK was struggling with being Batman and his main purpose of really promoting Harvey as Gotham's savior was so he could quit being Batman and start a life together with Rachel. Once Rachel died and Harvey became Two Face his dream/plan was destroyed. I actually think he likes the idea of him being an outcast and wanted by the cops at the end of TDK so it forces him not to get close to anyone (until of course the Catwoman comes into play).

I do think that Nolan and his writing team had a good idea of where the series was going to go if not before doing BB then writing TDK. I think the 3rd film is going to tie in a lot of stuff that happened in the previous films, especially TDK.

 

Well her death got very little screen time in regards to Bruce because it was at the end of the movie and only a day or so went by from her death until Batman stopped Harvey Dent. I actually do agree with you that when Bruce's parents died he spend almost 20 years trying to get over it so he shouldn't just rush into a relationship with Catwoman however we don't know how this is going to play out, maybe he won't ever get involved with her romantically, maybe the chase to catch her is what pulls him out of the darkness. I do trust Nolan completely so whatever he does I think it will be good (that's the fan boy in me talking).

And about your PS, I agree completely and this is one of the reasons why I started this thread. I love the Batman character and talking about it and was hoping to get into a lot of discussions on any news about the next film when it comes out and also speculation and ideas. So thank you!

 

Nolan already said Freeze will never see the light of day in one of his movies. I've never really been a big fan of Freeze, maybe a lot has to do with Batman & Robin, I just never found the character too interesting. Also I'm not a huge Batman comic fan anymore but I never thought that Mr. Freeze was really that big of a villain in Batman's world (he was probably on the 2nd tier of villians).

The Joker made too much sense to pass up for the 2nd film, especially since they hinted at it at the end of BB and he's probably the biggest most known comic book villain. I think the original plan was to have The Joker appear in both TDK and a lesser role in B3 but unfortunately those plans had to be changed. If I had to guess I'd say we're going to see a Nolan made up villian or a lesser known Batman villian from the comics that has never been in a movie before. I also think we'll see an arms dealer Penguin cameo as well since the mob will probably still be a main point in the story.

Let me ask you guys this question: Since this is the last movie Nolan is going to do and since B3 is obviously going to bring in a ton of money do you guys think Warner Bros. will hire a director to do a new 3 part series either continuing with what Nolan built or do you think they might go in the James Bond route where they hire a new director for each movie and let that director do his own spin on the characters with a different/new villain in each film. I personally think either could work but I think it's important that we start to see new/different villains start to pop up in the next Batman films unless a writer really has a fresh/new idea.

 

Yeah I saw that, I think a Nolan Bond movie would be pretty sweet. Hopefully he gets a chance to do one.

 

I'm not sure if that's actually true since the Penguin was in early rough drafts of both BB and TDK in cameo form but got cut due to too many characters.

EDIT: I did see a recent interview with Nolan saying he wouldn't use The Penguin, so maybe he changed his mind or the character doesn't fit in B3.

 

Yes Nolan said this is his last Batman movie.

 

Rumor of the day (we should be getting a lot more of them now) is that The Riddler will be the main villain in the film with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a strong front runner for the role.

 

Nolan and others that worked on the film got very close to Heath and once he passed away they didn't feel right recasting the role since he did such a great job with it.

 

I agree, I think if they made another trilogy they need to have all 3 movies planned out ahead of time (even if it's just a rough outline) that way it could avoid the franchise turning into another Batman & Robin.

I do think the next trilogy, if there is one, should include Robin. Maybe have Bruce meet him early in the first film and by the end of it take him into his home, have the second film be him training to become Robin and the 3rd film have Robin in full force. That could be the center story line tying all 3 films together while having Batman deal with lesser known villains like Man-Bat or Clayface. And maybe have Bane be the main villain in the 3rd film so Batman would need Robin's help to defeat him.

Agreed. Robin Williams needs to quit his quest to get into one of these Batman films. That ship has sailed.

 

Haha. I dislike the Robin character as well, believe me. I don't think we're going to see anything as good as what Nolan gave us, with that being said I think it's a direction that make sense and with the right director and writers I think it's something that can actually work especially since Batman/Bruce Wayne will need something to tie the 3 films together and I'm not a fan of yet another Batman origin done since 'Batman Begins' was perfect in that aspect. Unless the Catwoman isn't used in 'B3' then you could build a Batman/Catwoman relationship throughout the 3 films. But you need something to base the trilogy on and I'm not a fan of just throwing 3 random Batman films together (ala Batman, Batman Returns & Batman Forever as well as Batman and Robin) and calling it a series.

 

I'm not sure what her purpose would be if the Joker wasn't involved in the movie. If they wanted to give the audience a feel the Joker is still around they can insert a throwaway line that mentions the Joker is still locked up inside Arkham or something along those lines.

 

After watching Inception, how cool would it be if Nolan could get Leonardo Dicaprio in B3 as a bad guy? I know it would probably never happen but maybe Nolan can convince him since it would be a role that Dicaprio has never done before. Wishful thinking for sure but since this is Nolan's last Batman film why not try to really go out with a bang.

 

Today's rumor has The Riddler part going to either Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Tom Hardy (both of them were in Inception). Gotham or Gotham City is the rumored title of B3, which almost seems too obvious to be true.

We should find out the official title and casting news any day now, if WB is following what they did with The Dark Knight news.