Warner Brothers have announced the release date for Batman 3 to be July 20, 2012. This would have Batman 3 released during the same summer of movies as the upcoming Spiderman reboot which you can read my thoughts on here.
So Batman 3 directed by Chris Nolan seems to be a happening thing which is fantastic news. You have to hand it to Nolan who doesn’t seem to rush his involvement with these things, Batman Begins fans waited with trepidation for news of Batman 2 while Chris Nolan filmed The Prestige before deciding on a Batman sequel. The same thing happened again after Dark Knight as Nolan invested himself in Inception (which you can read Darran’s article about here), but fans finally can be assured that Batman 3 is on its way, but where to from here?
Dark Knight ended with Batman on the run in order to preserve the reputation of Harvey Dent and consequently hope for the city, pursued by the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) with Gordon at the helm, Lucius Fox having resigned from Wayne Industries, Wayne manor still not having been rebuilt and Joker in custody.
There are a number of ways in which Nolan and his creative team could take things from here, obviously the theme of Batman being pursued by the GCPD is likely to be addressed and resolved in some way, we’ll probably see new villains introduced but what of the Joker? Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker was simply awesome, his portrayal of a character that promoted sheer anarchy, chaos and insanity simply by walking into a room was brilliant. As controversial as this may sound I would like to see Joker’s presence in the franchise continue if that was originally part of the plan for Batman 3 which it seemingly was given the final dialogue between Batman and Joker in Dark Knight.
The character could be recast (Guy Pierce or Adrien Brody come to mind) and portrayed in a different way to Heath’s performance. Consider Joker’s evolution in the comics throughout the past 80 years, he changed from a murdering lunatic, to a prankster committing strange and bizarre robberies, back to a homicidal maniac and so forth not to mention his visible changes throughout that time. Could it not be a part of his character in Nolan’s films to change his look and demeanour in a new film?
Whatever happens with Joker I’m excited for a third Batman film and I say that as a long time Batman comics fan as well as a movie fan, Nolan’s involvement is a fantastic outcome. What do you think of a new Batman film? What villains would you like to see appear? Sound off in the comments section below.
