April 30, 2010

Chris Nolan is staying on a biannual schedule. With the director's "The Dark Knight" breaking box-office records in 2008 and "Inception" poised to become a phenomenon this summer, fans will wait exactly two more years before seeing his next effort on the screen.

Warner Bros. confirmed today that "Batman 3" (not its final title, obviously) will come out in the summer of 2012, on July 20. In addition to making fanboys the world over salivate with eager anticipation, that also sets up a box-office rematch of sorts between Nolan's Batman franchise, a DC creation, and the movies from Marvel's stable of characters, as "The Avengers," the supergroup of superhero Marvel movies, comes out a few months earlier (in May).


When the first round of that slugfest went down, in the summer of 2008, "The Dark Knight" trumped "Iron Man" handily, grossing $215 million more in the U.S. But "Iron Man" wasn't yet a cultural juggernaut back then. In 2012 the landscape could look a little different, as Marvel characters have continued to gain traction.

"Avengers" will also have the benefit of Thor, Captain America and other characters from its film appearing in their own movies the summer before. And all this after "Iron Man 2" looks to break the opening-weekend record of "The Dark Knight" next week. The high-tech weaponry, she is flying.


http://latimesblogs.latim...nolan.html
[Edited 5/1/10 7:55am]

Nice! I wonder if they will be filming on location in Chicago again? I had the fortune to stumble upon their shooting locations on several occassions during production of the Dark Knight. They shot the Lamborghini scene where I take my pooch for a walk, the City Hall scenes in my neighborhood, and the bank robbery intro about a block from my work.

It was Bat-Tastic.

who's going to be the villains in this movie?

They better come back to Chicago. Shooot....do some scenes around my school...

I use to use a website for all my batman gossip but now I can't remember what it was, it's been so long since I've been there
[Edited 4/30/10 19:36pm]

I hope he has a bad temper Christian Bale is playing the part.

LadyLuvSexxy said:

Cool! A Chi-town girl! Yeah, I am fairly certain they will shoot here again. Nolan likes Chicago and the city bends over backwards for the Bat-crew. It's funny how Chicago is now "Gotham City" to a generation of youngsters...

Oooh, they need to Bring Cillian Murphy "Scarecrow" back because I don't like they way they just threw him away in The Dark Knight.

I cant wait!!!!

BlackbeltJones said:

Yeah, it makes me swell with pride even though I was around for the other Batman movies. But I know they won't be around Roosevelt.

But I sure will try to casually get into a scene or two.

Cool!

I'm deeply curious about how they plan to tool the story and it's villains. Supposedly the original plans were to have Ledger's Joker and Bale's Batman have an epic showdown but obviously that plan had to be scrapped.

They can't just leave the Joker story hanging like he was from the building at the end of The Dark Knight. It would be cheesy and maybe even a little disrespectful to Ledger's performance to just throw it away offhandedly to focus on a new villain. Re-casting the role could cause some problems too though.

Oh I think if the recast the Joker character there would be nothing but endless comparisions to Heath Ledger. It would be a hopeless situation for any actor to take on. Ledger set the bar high.

markpeg said:

I guess The joker is in Arkum Asylum. I hope they dont recast the Joker role. Johny Depp as the Riddler would be cool and maybe Manbat or Clayface...

dance4me3121 said:

I thik they should just move on to another villain, but they do need to find a way to wrap up the Joker story better than they did the Scarecrow story.

I hope they have the riddler character (Johnny Depp would be cool-or another character actor). I hope they introduce the riddler as a computer geek "bill gates" type-this would build a foundation for riddles. Plus they can introduce cat woman aka Selina kyle as the love interest for batman aka bruce wayne. It would be perfect, he falls for Selina who has a horrific event happen that turns her into catwoman. Just as Bruce Wayne has fallen for her-she pulls away due to the horrific event. And they battle as catwoman and batman. Not knowing each other's identity. Until she's dying in his arms-he pulls her mask to discover his love has just passed. But Batmen never gets to reveal his true identity to her because it is too late.

What do you guys think?

The last one was too dark and killed Heath Ledger. I don't even want another Batman movie now!

Cinnie said:

It was just as dark as it should have been.

kewlschool said:

I know it's not the direction Hollywood thinks is profitable, but I prefer my action stars and superheroes without love interests. Maybe mention there's a lady (or fella!) somewhere to the side but making them a focus of the plot usually detracts from whatever else is going on IMO. Most of the time it's just an easy way to write in a Damsel in Distress the audience will care about.

meow85 said:

I grew up on the 1989 film, action figures, and reruns of the 60s TV show. It felt too dark to me.

^ I do, however, think it's got to be close to time Hollywood attempts an openly gay superhero or action hero. Plenty of comics have gay superheroes, so why not see if it works on the big screen?

Cinnie said:

I always felt the 1989 film was pretty dark in it's own way. It's not every movie that features an onscreen electrocution/human immolation.

Thing is, shitty Schumacher movies aside, Batman has been a pretty dark franchise for the past 30 or so years, and aside from the cheery blip in the 60's it began as a dark story too.


Though watching Christian Bale running around with an explosive over his head complaining about how "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb" would be priceless.

meow85 said:

I'm sayin', that was dark enough, but then they made DARK Knight

YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! aaaaah hahaaha


I swear that this morning I wake up and I thought "wouldn't it be cool if Nolan announced a new Batman film or something?"... and then I read this...how eerie is that???

Cinnie said:

man, that was the film where Batman's sweetheart was brutally murdered, where his best friend/ally was turned into a bitter monster and where he was overpowered (sort of) by a psychophatic genius,... THE FILM HAD TO BE DARK...
[Edited 5/2/10 12:01pm]

JoeTyler said:

Batman just works better as a dark story than it does as lighthearted fare. I mean, the title character is a seriously maladjusted individual who probably has some kind of mental illness. No matter how you look at it, dressing up as a flying rodent and kicking the shit out of clowns is not a healthy way to deal with your parents' death.

JoeTyler said:

yeah but who wrote that plot? Do we already know what the next movie's plot would be?

meow85 said:

In the Nolan films, Bruce Wayne HATES Batman; he sees his alter ego as a necessary and temporary tool; if he could, he would retire Batman tomorrow, but the world is full is bizarre supervillians, so...

Anyway, I love the Batman Universe; it's a world where people (both heroes and villians) deal with their mental problems in the most theatrical and epic mode possible! A world of deranged primadonnas!
[Edited 5/2/10 12:26pm]

Cinnie said:

It will probably feature Catwoman, so expect something nasty...

JoeTyler said:

I love that the majority of the characters don't have superpowers, either. It's just a bunch of supremely intelligent, nutsack crazy guys running around.

meow85 said:

yep, that's why Batman Forever and Batman & Robin missed the point completely...


on top of that, there are certain Batman villians which are pretty tricky for a "realistic" superhero movie: Mr.Freeze, Poison Ivy, Clayface, ManBat and similar bullshit...