Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Batman 3
 

8/15/08 - By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY:  With The Dark Knight's mega-blockbuster success, Batman had better be hunting for some mighty foes.  Dark Knight director Chris Nolan has not committed to another sequel, but Warner Bros. says it's eager to get started. And the key to Dark Knight's record-breaking box office is clearly its villain: Heath Ledger's Joker.  Fans are speculating about whom the Caped Crusader should face next time. Most agree it's time to get some formidable women in the mix.  "If the franchise could use anything, it's a little sexual tension," says Jim Littler of ComicBookMovie.com. "Catwoman is a pretty iconic character, and her relationship with Batman is complicated, the kind of thing Chris Nolan could handle well."  And there are plenty more to choose from:

•The Riddler. An iconic villain played to campy excess by Frank Gorshin and Jim Carrey. It's possible Nolan could bring fame back to Edward Nigma. "Audiences give Nolan the benefit of the doubt," says Blair Butler of G4TV. "He made Two-Face a serious criminal again. Why not Riddler?"

•Deadshot. An assassin, Deadshot favors silent, wrist-mounted guns. He came to Gotham City as a crime fighter but was exposed as a villain.

•Ventriloquist and Scarface. Meek ventriloquist Arnold Wesker begins to take orders from his dummy, Scarface, to murder his enemies. "It's a very creepy scenario, and Chris would have to walk that line carefully," says Garth Franklin of the movie fan site Dark Horizons. "After all, it's a guy running around with a doll."

•Black Mask. Roman Sionis was heir to a cosmetics empire when his face was peeled off by a chemical mishap. Sionis wreaks havoc behind a ghoulish mask carved from his father's coffin.

•Hugo Strange. Strange is a scientist who invented a dense fog he uses to target crime scenes, creating a protective cloak for himself and his thugs. It may be too similar to the toxin The Scarecrow used in Batman Begins, some say.

There are a few villains who likely won't find life in Nolan's Gotham City, including The Penguin and Mr. Freeze, played earlier by Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  "You really can't have too fanciful a villain in Chris Nolan's universe," says Rob Worley of Comics2Film.com. "Anything too science-fiction-y isn't going to fit in his hard-core take of Batman. He likes something that's going to fit in the real world."  Like Robin?  "No," Butler says emphatically. "When he entered the picture, it was the death knell for the franchise (of the mid-'90s). There are just too many negative connotations for Batman running around with a younger man in a leotard."

8/6/08 - As the Internet rumor mill heats up about a possible foe for the next Batman film, writer David S. Goyer (who got a story credit for The Dark Knight) told SCI FI Wire that it's possible the villain may not even be one you've ever heard of.  "There's no reason why we necessarily have to use the same three or four that are still around," Goyer said in an interview at Comic-Con International in San Diego last month. "I mean, Batman's got a wide variety, [a] rogues' gallery. Certainly we used two in the first movie that hadn't been in the films before."  Goyer, who wrote the script for Batman Begins with director Christopher Nolan, was referring to Ra's al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy).  The Dark Knight, written by Nolan and his brother, Jonathan Nolan, features Batman's most famous enemy, the Joker (played memorably by the late Heath Ledger), and a second well-known nemesis, Harvey Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart).  And Goyer's comments come as Web sites speculate on which well-known villain (The Riddler? The Penguin? Catwoman?) and which actor (Johnny Depp? Philip Seymour Hoffman? Angelina Jolie?) would play him/her in an inevitable third film in the most recent incarnation of the Batman saga.  But there are plenty of others: Villains that Batman has faced in the DC Comics alone include such familiar and obscure names as Anarky, Bane, Batzarro, Black Mask, Blockbuster, Calendar Man, Catman, Clayface, Cluemaster, Deadshot, Firefly, Hush, Killer Croc, Killer Moth, the Mad Hatter, Man-Bat, Maxie Zeus, Mr. Freeze, Mr. Zsasz, Poison Ivy, Hugo Strange, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Ventriloquist and Scarface, according to Wikipedia.  No decision has been made yet on whether to move forward with a third Batman movie, though it's likely one will come together eventually. "It's really up to Chris to decide, and he has not decided whether or not he wants to go back to the well again," Goyer said. "And if he does, I, you know, would be honored to work with him." --Patrick Lee, News Editor

7/2/08 - Christopher Nolan, the writer/director of the upcoming sequel film The Dark Knight, said recently that he hasn't begun to think about doing a third installment.  Nolan said: "The film to me is not actually finished until the audience sees it and tells me what it is, really. So it's too early to say for all those kind of reasons. The other thing to be said on the subject is we absolutely did not feel in taking on the idea of doing the second film that we could in any way hamper ourselves or disadvantage ourselves by saving things for another film. ... I think that's a mistake people have made in the past, thinking too much of the future. I think you have to put all your eggs into one basket and make as great a film as you can, and that's what we've tried to do."

AlienAlmanac.com   2008