Damn, Warner Bros. are wasting no time setting up their future summer tentpoles. Just two months after it was officially announced that Christopher Nolan was moving forward with a third Batman film (and was also brought on as a consultant for the next “Superman” film), WB has now officially set a deadline for Nolan in the form of a release date that is now officially July 20, 2012.
Zero details have surfaced of course, but in the beginning of February it was announced that David Goyer and Jonah Nolan were penning the script. Whatever this third Batman eventually is named, it will arrive in theaters almost four years to the day that “The Dark Knight” dazzled geeks, pleebs and the movie-going intelligentsia alike in the summer of 2008 (setting the box-office on fire and becoming a comic-book film game changer).
The film will be screened in conventional and IMAX theaters, and to our happiness, the announcement comes with zero mention of 3-D, which Nolan and his cinematographer Wally Pfister seem to be against (or at least the gratuitous use of).
This will mean some rest for the wicked. Nolan’s existentialist thriller “Inception” hits theaters this summer on July 16, but he’ll have at least a year to get the script into shape — presumably, they won’t shoot any sooner than the summer of 2011.
No villains have been announced, and you can simply just laugh at all those previous rumors. Though, Nolan seems to like working with the same people, so we wouldn’t be surprised if key members of the “Inception” cast — folks like Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy — turn up in the film somewhere. But Nolan also wisely hires the right person for the job and doesn’t play favorites.
Expecting to return — though no formal cast announcements have been made — are Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman. Which one of those stupid rumors was your favorite? Marion Cotillard as Catwoman? Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin? Eddie Murphy as the Riddler? Let the speculation of what villains will appear commence! But honestly, we do like the Riddler, if only because there’s a serial killer-like quality to his character that you can ground in reality whereas transposing silly characters to the screen like the Penguin or Mr. Freeze is something Nolan and company generally know better than to attempt.
Meanwhile, Summer 2012 will be a massive showdown of tentpoles. Marvel’s “The Avengers” hits May 4, Peter Berg’s boardgame-with-aliens picture “Battleship” arrives May 25, J.J. Abrams‘ “Star Trek” sequel is slated for a June 29 date , and the rebooted 3-D “Spider-Man” by director Marc Webb is scheduled for July 3. “John Carter of Mars” is also expected in the summer of 2012 and other possibilities include “Wolverine 2” and the recently announced “Godzilla” reboot (presumably in 3-D).
