I’ve been looking forward to this article ever since it was announced that Bane would be appearing in The Dark Knight Rises, and not just because the title rhymes.  I’ve been looking forward to it because Bane is awesome, and not many people outside of comics fans have much of an idea of who he is.  This is because his appearances in media outside of comics and cartoons have been pretty much limited to two: he was an almost unnoticeable tertiary badguy in that movie-that-shall-not-be-named Batman & Robin, and he was the first boss fight in Batman: Arkham Asylum.

But there’s much more to Bane than just “the Mexican wrestler guy who’s on steroids,” so allow me to explain why he makes my short list of awesome Batman villains that most people don’t even know exist.

(Which also includes Mr. Zsasz.  Yes, I freaking loved Batman: Arkham Asylum.)

This is not a rumor.  It’s in the freaking New York Times. The Dark Knight Rises will star, among others, Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, an Tom Hardy as Bane.

At least we now know, at long last, that Tom Hardy’s beard has nothing to do with his role in TDKR.

The LA Times‘ Hero Complex will be running an interview with Christopher Nolan later this morning, but before it went up, they have teased some very, very exciting Batman 3 news from it.

In a nutshell:

• The movie will be called The Dark Knight Rises.
  
• It will not be in 3D.
• The Riddler will not be the main villain.

Like usual, the first 15,000 tickets to San Diego Comic Con 2011 come with a pass to attend Preview Night (a four hour block full of retailers and presenters that takes place on Wednesday night, the day before the con opens). Those 15,000 full weekend tickets go on sale during Comic Con, and last year they sold out in October.

This year, they were gone by the end of the weekend. Wondering why? We decided to take a look at some movie schedules.

The Internet is fair bursting at the seams today with unsubstantiated rumors regarding plot details of the next Christopher Nolan Batman movie. Specifically, that the Riddler is the villain.

Yes, that was the opening paragraph of an article I wrote in February.  Go ahead and look.  I’ll wait.

Today, the Internet is fair exploding with news that a Warner Bros. studio casting grid, a document kept updated with all the jobs and prospective jobs available and taken in the industry for scheduling purposes, shows the Riddler as a character who needs casting for Batman 3, and shows Joseph Gordon-Levitt as “interested” in the role.

Let’s talk about what this means, and what it doesn’t mean, because one thing that it does not mean is that the Riddler will be the main villain in Batman 3.

Double Rainbow Guy (Videogum)

Paul the Octopus (Time)

Isiah Mustafa (G4)

Sam Raimi on WoW (Metacafe)

Michael Caine on Batman 3 (Digital Spy)

Robert Rodriguez and Nimrod Antal (Joblo)

Drunk Hulk (Cover Stories)

(title image via NY Mag)

It’s official. Columbia Pictures has secured actor Will Smith, director Barry Sonnenfeld, and is in “advanced negotiations” with Tommy Lee Jones: Men in Black 3 is scheduled for a summer 2012 release. In a possible major plot-related give away, Columbia has also announced that they are in talks with Josh Brolin (of No Country for Old Men and Milk) to play a young Agent Kay.

ScreenRant suggests that this means that the movie will heavily feature the training of a new Kay. We have another idea.

Now that the Harry Potter franchise is finally kicking the bucket (in 2011 with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II), Warner Brothers is looking for another cash cow of beloved characters to drive its infernal engine, and it didn’t have to look far.

Yesterday, at Showest, WB head Alan Horn said this:

As we ease out of Harry Potter, we hope to bring you the excitement of the DC [Comics] Library!

This would imply that DC character based movies will be released yearly, like the Harry Potter films, and, according to another Showest announcement, will be in 3-D.

Geoff Boucher has an interview with Christopher Nolan about his Superman project in today’s LA Times where the acclaimed director very carefully says absolutely nothing of substance about his Superman project.

Asked if Superman as a franchise has to overcome a deficiency of truly great villains, unlike, say, Spider-Man and Batman, he won’t bite. “That’s a very sly way of asking a question I’m not going to answer.”

Touché, Mr. Nolan, touché.  However, he did say a number of definitive things about his third Batman movie, which is currently in the script-writing stage: