Heath would have wanted it this way.
A few weeks ago, Gary Oldman let it slip that the next Batman film would begin shooting next year. Michael Caine, in an interview last March, said he believed the Riddler would be involved in this one, which added more fuel to ridiculous rumors like the one about Eddie Murphy playing the Riddler. Well, hold on to your goofy hats because here’s another steaming pile of speculation coming at you.
Cinefools just reported that director Chris Nolan has dropped out of filming for The Prisoner, which was 1 of 2 movies he was set to film before the 3rd Batman. With 1 less film in production, shooting for the 3rd Batman may start sooner. Here’s 4 other numbers I forgot to cram into this 1 paragraph: 18, 32, 8, 69, HIKE!
As for The Prisoner, it may have a tougher time moving ahead without Nolan attache– OH WHO CARES? BATMAN!!!
~ robopanda
Sorry, folks, those are the rules - Batman sequel news, no matter how small or unconfirmed, means I have to drop everything and cover it. The word out of Comic Con (from various sites) is that a not-at-all-joking-sounding Gary Oldman said that the next Batman begins shooting next year, “but you didn’t hear it from me.” …And that’s pretty much the whole story. Meanwhile, no one has said anything about director Chris Nolan coming back, and with him busy shooting Inception, it’s hard to say whether he’d have time to shoot a Batman sequel, if what Oldman says is even true. So does that mean they’re hiring a new director? Yes. Yes they are. Brett Ratner will come aboard to direct, Christian Bale will be replaced by Will Smith’s son, Cher plays his love interest, and Shia LaBeouf will play the villain, a midget prostitute that murders.
Okay, everyone, time to freak out! Chris Nolan’s next movie won’t be a Dark Knight sequel!
In a whopping seven-figure buy, Warner Bros. has nabbed “Inception,” a script written by Christopher Nolan as his next directing vehicle. Deal allows WB to keep the director of its 2008 top-grosser “The Dark Knight” in the studio fold and gives WB a big film for summer 2010. Nolan will begin production this summer on the project that Warner describes as a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind [Editor's Note: I loathe you, Variety writers]. The studio hopes to bring Nolan back for a third Batfilm, but the filmmaker hasn’t yet committed to doing that pic. [Variety]
What the f-ck! You make a great movie everyone loves and we demand you make a sequel and now this is how you repay us? It’s almost as if this asshole wants to wait for a script or a good idea or some gay bullshit like that. Screw him. Someone get Brett Ratner on the phone. Or just set up that spotlight with the silhouette of nachos on it and point it at the sky above West Hollywood. He’ll know what to do.
Here’s a news lede that has everything:
ISTANBUL - The mayor of Batman, a city recently under scrutiny due to unsolved murders and increasing rates of female suicides, will sue the director of the movie “Batman” movie [sic].
Yes, there is a city in Turkey named “Batman”. And the mayor is suing Chris Nolan. Not DC Comics, not Warner Bros, but Chris Nolan. My sources tell me the only reason he didn’t sue Adam West is that he can hear your thoughts.
“The royalty of the name ‘Batman’ belongs to us … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us,” [Mayor Hüseyin] Kalkan told to the Doğan news agency.
Mayor Kalkan said last year foreign media picked up on Batman and the city’s increasing suicide rates among women. He said a columnist asked why Batman’s mayor did not sue the movie Batman for royalties while struggling with economic problems. “We found this criticism right and started to look for legal possibilities of a case like that,” he said.
Meanwhile, local newspaper Batman Çağdaş alleged yesterday that Batman residents living abroad cannot use Batman as a title for their business, leading the municipality to think about the royalty rights of that name.
Batman Çağdaş newspaper reported that Şafii Dağ, a former Batman resident, currently living in the Germany city of Wesel, is one of those citizens who cannot use Batman as a title for his business, according to the newspaper. “I named my two restaurants Batman. But six months ago, a team of employees from the production company of the movie Batman made me change the title. Telling them that Batman was the name of my hometown did not change anything,” Dağ said. [Hurriyet Daily News via GeeksofDoom - Thanks to Kevin for the tip]
You might wonder why a city in Turkey would be named Batman. The answer is that it’s built on the banks of the Batman River. Duh.
If you can see the cape, the bitch fell off
The Dark Knight passed the half-billion mark over the weekend. The film took only six weeks to reach the milestone, half the time it took Titanic.
Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros., said he expects “The Dark Knight” to finish at about $530 million, though it could reach $550 million if business persists as strongly as it has.
The Dark Knight” will climb to about $505 million by Labor Day, the conclusion of Hollywood’s busy summer season. That amounts to nearly one-eighth of Hollywood’s overall summer revenue of $4.2 billion, which edges the previous summer record of $4.18 billion set last year, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
Factoring in today’s higher admission prices, “The Dark Knight” would need to take in about $900 million to match the number of tickets sold by “Titanic.” [Yahoo]
The better Dark Knight performs, the clearer it becomes how insanely successful Titanic was. And I think the reason why is pretty obvious: Billy Zane.
