When we received an awards consideration copy of The Dark Knight last week, there was clearly something missing — or, to be more accurate, censored with black felt-tip pen.
No one in Hollywood likely ever expected to see the words "Batman" and "Turkey" in the same sentence, but a developing story out of the Balkans reaffirms our faith in the impossible: The mayor of an actual Turkish city called Batman announced over the weekend he plans to sue director Christopher Nolan for naming infringement.Frustrated over the superhero's incursion into his centuries-old city's cultural turf, mayor Hüseyin Kalkan's proposed lawsuit would nevertheless omit Batman creator Bob Kane, publisher DC Comics and film franchisee Warner Bros. as Nolan's co-defendants. Instead, it would hold the filmmaker himself singly responsible for the region's growing international reputation as a brooding, froggy-voiced world capital of mayhem — none of it in glorious IMAX:
While outlandish casting rumors for the next Batman sequel are a dime a dozen (we're starting another right here: fresh from her Dreamgrillz triumph, VH1 star Tiffany "New York" Pollard is being tipped to star as Bruce Wayne's next love interest), we've never been able to put much stock in them, principally because Bat mastermind Christopher Nolan hasn't actually signed on to a third film yet. Now, talking to the LAT, the director signals that his future involvement in the series shouldn't be seen as an inevitability:
In recent weeks, rumors that Philip Seymour Hoffman would play the Penguin in the next Batman installment have become so widespread that even Michael Caine began to repeat them as fact (claiming that he first read of them in a newspaper, then confirmed the rumors with a WB executive). However, if Hoffman is soon to don a monocle and top hat, this is the first he's heard of it (and he's totally going to miss his call time). Speaking to MTV News at the Toronto Film Festival, Hoffman said that much like a persistent archvillain, the Penguin rumor is one that reappears to torment him every few years:
Lawsuits Waiting to Happen, Vol. MCXVIII: Now that it's been rid of Bob Shaye and his 500-thread-count sheets, New Line's bed these days seems a friendlier habitat for Mike De Luca. The studio's ex-production boss reportedly plans to exercise its genre mandate with The Thirteenth Room, a novel adaptation whose rights NL acquired Monday and which De Luca is looking to produce. Stop us if you've heard the logline before, though: "[The book] follows a man accused of brutally murdering his wife who is given a chance to save her by going back in time, in one-hour increments. He puts together clues to figure out not only who killed her but why." De Luca thinks the whole thing's pretty crafty. "It has a great cinematic structure that unfolds in reverse," he told Variety. Meanwhile, we're waiting for word on whether Christopher Nolan's lawyers plan to follow the hot new Watchmen/Disturbia model of suing De Luca after he's shot his unofficial Memento revision. It's not a trend we're fond of, but neither are remakes. Call it even. [Variety]
After a handful of outlandish Batman 3 casting rumors recently trickled online in a impressionistic stream of semi-consciousness, we may have found one that not only can't be attributed to a fanboy crack binge, but may actually be... true? And for the six of you who haven't yet seen The Dark Knight, spoilers follow, so consider skipping ahead: Aaron Eckhart, whose Two-Face/Harvey Dent ended up as killed as any TDK character got without going through the necessary franchise terminus of burial/cremation/being chopped into pieces, confirmed this week that, yes, his villain is dead, and no, he will not be returning in any forthcoming Batman sequels. That is, Eckhart added, if there are any Batman sequels to be made at all — at least with Christopher Nolan overseeing things:
Another day, another Batman casting rumor! In the wake of murmurs that Philip Seymour Hoffman could be the next Penguin and Johnny Depp (not Brian Austin Green) may play The Riddler, the latest scuttlebutt concerns Batman foe Catwoman — and let's just say this casting choice ain't Angelina. No, according to the British press, 62-year-old Cher is in talks with director Christopher Nolan to add the comic-book role to an acting repertoire that already includes gypsies, tramps, and thieves. Says the Daily Telegraph:
After The Dark Knight filled out its ensemble cast with people like Eric Roberts and Anthony Michael Hall, we're sure that Christopher Nolan's office was besieged by headshots from every actor in Hollywood in dire need of a comeback. The latest is former 90210-er Brian Austin Green, who tells MTV Movies that he isn't interested in simply being tenth-billed; no, he's going for the brass ring and nominating himself to play the Riddler in the next film. There's just one catch: if they're going to cast him, they kind of need to let him know now...
The Dark Knight's record-breaking opening left us entranced by not only its tsunami of cash, but also by the news, commentary and other unclassifiable phenomena we spotted in its wake around the Web. For your Monday morning convenience, here's a glimpse at what the biggest three-day box-office weekend in history will get you:
After surviving months of Dark Knight hype, viral outreach and tastefully overblown praise for late co-star Heath Ledger, Defamer finally got its chance at a screening Tuesday to see what all the Bat-fuss was about. And as editor Seth Abramovitch and senior editor S.T. VanAirsdale discovered in their second installment of Defamer Instant Reviews, not everybody is ready to validate its Second Coming status quite yet. Is it good? Absolutely. Is it the best film of the summer? That's where things get complicated — on AIM, of course, because this watershed cultural moment deserves no less.
It's arguably the most anticipated movie of the last five summers—the second installment of a rare franchise resuscitation, helmed by a maverick suspense master with nary a misfire to a short but stellar career. Weak links would be replaced. Tragedy would strike. And then a lucky few got to see it, instantly dislodging an avalanche of superlatives. The Dark Knight has, until now, been enjoying the best advance word-of-mouth of any release in a surprisingly bountiful mind-candy season that included Iron Man and Wall-E. In fact, it's until only recently been coasting at an astonishing 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. What changed? Two Daves of note filed their pans: The New Yorker's David Denby (who just lavished his highest praise upon Hancock, so take that for what it's worth), and New York's Dave Edelstein. The cumulative effect of the Dave-naysaying? A sizable dent in the dark armor, with the movie's RT score tumbling to 88% at post time. As for our worst fears—that Ledger isn't posthumously Oscar-worthy, just hammy from the grave—Edelstein confirms every last one of them after the jump. We're seeing it tomorrow, after which we'll try to get our Defamer Instant Review up as quickly as possible, for those who are just dying to know how categorically good this movie is, in easy-to-digest IM format.
For all the veins of Dark Knight interest Warner Bros. has opened among stampeding fanboys, late-night talk-show hosts and, er, Michael Bay, at the end of the day nothing succeeds like success. To wit: When your showtimes — midnight to 6 a.m. in some markets — become national news, you can probably just put the campaign on cruise-control and move on to the next film:
After more than four months of hype, it's getting to feel like there's increasingly less to discover about The Dark Knight except whether or not it's good. Variety pretty much took care of that on Sunday, overriding David Letterman's early, spoilerrific review with a bit more textural rave. That was preceded in the LA Times by more Heath Ledger superlatives and requisite bleakness reinforcement from director Chris Nolan. But Anne Thompson has an even better showing at her blog, featuring expansive Nolan quotes from a recent screening/discussion and, far more impressively, a look at Michael Bay's little-known original stab at the Dark Knight screenplay:
In case you haven't heard yet that The Dark Knight is going to be the Darkest! Batman! Ever! (complete with a mourned actor doing all kinds of posthumously hype-worthy things that no one will shut up about), Aaron Eckhart showed up in the LA Times's summer film preview Sunday to reinforce the company line that "people will be surprised" at the bleak turns his own Harvey Dent character endures en route to becoming Two Face:
The AP's Dave Germain has quite the feverish, myth-churning Heath Ledger tribute making the rounds today, positioning the late actor's final film The Dark Knight as "arguably the biggest movie featuring a posthumous role in Hollywood history." But don't get your hopes up! The A-list parade of Ledger devotees that follows keeps his subtlety and charm as the Joker in ever-modest perspective:
Many, including us, have been wondering out loud how Warner Bros. plans on addressing the unique (and thankfully so) marketing problem currently facing The Dark Knight: Namely, what to do about a campaign that took fiendish pleasure in showcasing Heath Ledger's singularly bleak and twisted take on iconic Batman villain the Joker. Slate now reports that the studio's plan, in place since the beginning but perhaps being ushered in more hastily since the actor's death, is to shift the focus over to the film's other featured villain:
· In other of Father's Day, we present our candidate for Dad of the Year. That kid is going to grow up strong.
· Even after a second opportunity to design the bat suit, The Dark Knight's Christopher Nolan still refuses to succumb to the rubber nipple temptation that destroyed a lesser director.
· Is The Thing about to give Invisible Girl a brick-headed Bronsky? We think he is.
· Archaeologists uncover oldest petrified Mickey Mouse popsicle on record.
· Isaiah Washington-related silences are now being broken at an incredible pace.
