Scoop: Batman 3

From cinemablend, The Dark Knight may still be months away, but planning for a third Batman movie is already happening, somewhere deep in the Warner Bros. lair. Tonight, in a flurry of superhero related messages between me and a long time scooper and friend of the site, we uncovered some of the details about where exactly Batman goes next, after he’s finished with the Joker in Dark Knight.

Make no mistake by the way, Joker really is out of the picture after this movie, at least according to our source. We’re told that the Joker indeed was supposed to be back for another film, and that they did consider simply recasting the part for the inevitable Batman 3, but that those plans have been scrapped after the tragedy of Heath Ledger’s death. Joker has been written out of the Batman 3 script.

Instead, our scooper tells us we’ll get a lot more Two-Face. No surprise there. Anyone who’s seen the recent trailer for The Dark Knight knows the current movie will be dealing with the creation of Batman’s scarred, coin-flipping bad guy. It looks like Batman 3 will continue with his story. We couldn’t get specific details from our source, but she says the third film will be referencing the Batman graphic novels “The Long Halloween” and “Dark Victory”.

“The Long Halloween” seems to deal with a lot of the plot elements we’ll see in The Dark Knight. According to Wikipedia, it involves the Joker, and the creation of Two-Face. More importantly, it involves the evolution of the gang of criminals Batman fights into full fledged supervillains. “Dark Victory” is a sequel to “The Long Halloween”, in the same way Batman 3 will likely be a direct sequel to The Dark Knight. “Dark Victory” continues the story of “The Long Halloween” and seems primarily focused on Two-Face, while introducing Batman’s sidekick Robin. Does that mean we’ll get the return of the boy wonder in Batman 3? If the story follows along this same track, it could.

For any of this complex storytelling to work, they’re going to need director Christopher Nolan. From what our source tell us, he’ll be back for Batman 3… but only Batman 3. Whether the series goes on from there is anybody’s guess, but all indications are that no matter what happens Nolan quits the world of Batman after the third one, and moves on to something else.