Michael Caine, the British actor who portrayed Bruce Wayne’s trusted butler Alfred in “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” sat down recently with Collider to talk about his role in his latest film, “Is Anybody There,” and let it be known that if he had to guess, Christoper Nolan will be resurrecting The Riddler to fill the role of the antagonist in the third installment of his ‘Batman’ series.
When first asked about the the prospect of a third film, Caine stated that it won’t be happening for some time since Nolan is currently busy getting his passion project off the ground, “Christopher is doing a picture called ‘Inception’ with Leonardo DiCaprio which I saw on the Internet. So I imagine another Batman is quite a long way away.”
As far as Villains are concerned, Caine has a good guess how Nolan will follow up Heath Ledger’s chilling portrayal of the Joker, “That would be probably The Riddler.” Caine is also confident that despite Ledger’s seemingly unrivaled performance, it’s not impossible for another actor to surprise the audience by exposing a deeply disturbing character, “I thought it would be a tough act to follow for anybody who played against The Joker after Jack Nicholson. (Laughs) You know what I’m saying? Heath is The Joker. We’ll see.”
The third Batman film is rumored to be in the works for a 2010 start date, but with Nolan’s “Inception,” now on his plate, we tend to think the nerds are going to have to wait a few years before they see another “Batman” film from Nolan.