Here I am! Alive and well! It's been a while since my last post, I've kinda busy working and working on other projects and such so I kinda forgot about my little blog here, but then something happened earlier today that I felt I had to say something about. The internet has been on fire since the announcement came, everyone and their mother giving their two-cents on it. I was going to wait until the craziness calmed down, and also to see if the news was true and not just internet rumor run rampart (and I can see that happening and making us all look like fools). But alas, I couldn't restrain myself anymore.
As you all know, it was announced today that Tom Hardy (Inception, RocknRolla, Star Trek: First Contact) has joined the cast of the next, untitled Batman film. Is he playing a villain? Hero? Batman? Cop? Well I'm leaning towards the villain side of the coin. Hardy was the break out star of Inception, and movie projects began lining up for almost immediately after the film opened. Most notably, Hardy was set to take over the Mad Max role, the same role that made Mel Gibson a star, but budget problems stalled that project. Being a talented and in demand young actor, I can't see Hardy playing a bland supporting role, and a villain in a major comic book movie would set him up for the big time.
Hell look at Heath Ledger, no one remembers this but it wasn't long before TDK that his career was in a bit of a slump after a string of flops, then Brokeback Mountain earned him a Oscar nod and shot him back onto the A-list. After that Ledger scored the Joker role and many were predicting that would keep him a spot at the top of Hollywood for many years to come. If Heath wouldn't have tragically passed, we would probably see many, many big budget movies being carried solely by him. But I digress, what I'm merely trying to say is that Hardy is in Heath Ledger's position, a golden ticket to the top.
Now, seeing how Hardy will be playing a villain, the next question is which one? Nolan is a notoriously secretive filmmaker and I'm sure that if he had his way we wouldn't know who Hardy is playing until we go to see the movie in July of 2012. Hell, we could find out who he plays tomorrow, we could find out six months from now. I'm predicting that we'll soon get an official announcement about it from Warner Brothers, confirming which character Hardy is playing as well as the official title of the film.
As for my prediction, I'm going with the majority of the 'net who are predicting Hardy will play the Riddler. The Riddler's name has been flying around the web since the closing credits of TDK and is a villain that fits perfectly into Nolan's bat-verse. Nolan has leaned towards the more realistic side of Batman's rogue's gallery and seems a natural fit to follow Heath Ledger's Jokers.
Now I'll be honest, of all of Batman's villains, Riddler is one of my least favorites. I don't find him threatening or interesting and he always seemed like a Joker rip-off to me, especially since the Joker kinda touched on the twisted puzzles a bit in TDK. But I also have faith in Nolan as a filmmaker and think he could make Riddler a good villain, especially if he follows the recent comics which see Riddler as a P.I. competing with Batman.
But my personal choice for a villain for Batman 3 has been one I've been championing since the end of TDK: Black Mask. We haven't seen Black Mask in a movie yet and I personally want to see a new villain in this next Bat-film. In the realistic Nolan Bat-world, Black Mask could fit in effortlessly as the ruthless mob boss to take over crime after the events of TDK, and who else to be his muscle than Bane? Bane is another great Bat-villain that got the short stick from Hollywood and deserves to get a chance to show how imposing of a villain he can be.
Anywho, I can totally see Hardy bringing a bit of sadistic charm to Black Mask, but I can also see him bulking up and being the calculating and brutal Bane. Both men can naturally fit into the movie Bat world but realistically I think the bloggers are going to end up being right with their predictions of Riddler and Catwoman.
But then again, Nolan has always proven to be a filmmaker that goes against expectations. As much as we all looked forward to another appearance from the Joker, none of us saw what Nolan was going to do with the character, hell when fans first learned that Joker would wear makeup and not be naturally ugly they cried war. But Nolan more than made up for it, and I'm whichever villain we get, whichever story we get, we're all in for a treat.
