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A Knight by Any Other Name: Why We Don’t Need Nolan to Use Characters from the Comic Books…

Read our in-depth review of the film here.

There was a bit of a ripple on-line last week when it was announced that Marion Cotillard was playing a Wayne Enterprise employee by the name of Miranda Tate and Joseph Gordon Levitt was playing a cop named John Blake in the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises. Both actors had been suggested for various and established characters (Cotillard seems a perfect fit for Talia Al Ghul, while Levitt was linked to characters as diverse as Alberto Falcone and the Black Mask). Still, it’s surprising how shocked everybody seemed that neither high-profile actor would playing a character established in the Bat mythos. Does it really matter that much?

I can’t Talia if it’s really an original character…

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The Trouble With Trilogies: Why Superhero Fanchises Have Trouble With the Third Instalment…

So, it turns out that The Dark Knight Rises has a top secret ending. That’s very interesting, and I wonder what it could be. A few obvious possibilities have popped into my head, but there’s one facet of this news which really fascinates me: this piece of information gives weight to the suggestion that Nolan is going to give his superhero franchise a definitive ending, something that perhaps explains why we don’t really have a “classic” superhero trilogy yet, despite the fact that quite a few comic book characters have pushed well past the third film. So will Batman be able to do what Superman, Spider-Man, the X-Men and even another Batman have failed to do before him? Will he craft a complete and wonderful trilogy?

Batman really wants to know what the ending is...

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The Strange Case of Hugo Strange: Robin Williams in the Dark Knight Rises?

You’d imagine that the announcement that Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway would play Bane and Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises might have put a bit of dampener of cast speculation for Nolan’s superhero blockbuster. You would have been wrong. The latest rumour coming out is that Robin Williams has been tapped to play Dr. Hugo Strange. I’d normally dismiss this the way that we dismiss all those Joseph Gordon Levitt or Johnny Depp as the Riddler rumours, but I figure it’s an interesting enough idea to merit discussion.

By the way, in case you need an introduction to Hugo Strange, here’s the trailer for the upcoming Batman video game Batman: Arkham City, in which Strange is voiced by Corey Burton “doing a Christopher Lee” and put in a very Nolan-esque setting. Give it a watch.

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Venom Optional: Early Thoughts About Christopher Nolan’s Bane…

When it was first announced last week, the choice of Bane as a Batman villain seemed a little… odd. I had reckoned that Nolan might opt for a modern villain who had yet to appear outside of comics or would return to a classic Batman villain, but I didn’t reckon he’d pick a modern villain who had already appeared on the big screen. Though I honestly doubt we have to worry about Nolan rehashing Batman & Robin, he seemed an odd choice for the sequel’s villain. However, after giving it some thought, he doesn’t seem such a bad choice. The fact that Tom Hardy is playing him certainly helps.

I'm kinda glad Nolan stayed away from the big guns...

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The Cat’s Out of the Bag: Catwoman and Bane Confirmed as Villains of The Dark Knight Rises (Batman 3)

Read our in-depth review of the film here.

Yesterday was a big day for fans of superhero cinema. Along with photos from X-Men: First Class (and an interview with Kevin Bacon which suggests he’s having a lot of fun, so I likely will too), Warner Brothers released some more photos of Green Lantern and a little bit of news concerning The Dark Knight Rises. Tom Hardy will be playing the steroid-fueled villain Bane, while Anne Hathaway will be playing Catwoman. I’ll just let that sink in.

“Tell me who the villains are!”

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