Months ago, before The Dark Knight Rises had an official title and when virtually everything about the movie was pure speculation, many movie sites had pretty much decided (on no more evidence than that Levitt was in Inception and would seem a good choice for The Riddler), that the main villain would be The Riddler and that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would play the role. When it turned out The Riddler wasn’t in the flick, the speculation went quiet, but now it appears Gordon-Levitt will be in the movie after all, even if we don’t know who he’ll play.
Deadline has confirmed the actor is in talks for the flick, although they have no idea whwhat the role is. The hope is that he’ll have time to shoot The Dark Knight Rises, which starts production in May, one he’s finished Rian Johnson’s Looper.
So who will he play? Well for a long time there’s been speculation that Dr Hugo Strange will be part of The Dark Knight Rises – indeed before Tom Hardy was officially announced as Bane, that’s who many were saying he would play. Now it appears many are thinking this is the role Gordon-Levitt is up for. In the comics, Strange is a genius, mad scientist who becomes obsessed with Batman, learns his secret identity and ends up dressing up like him. That would certainly fit into Nolan’s ethos, especially as a theme brought out in the second film was how Batman’s existence causes other people to follow his lead, and get into trouble because of it.
However we’ll reserve judgement, purely because it appears the villains are piling up to the point where the movie’s starting to seem like the supervillain team in the 1960s Batman flick. Bane and Selina Kyle (Catwoman) have been confirmed for the flick, there are still rumours about Talia Al-Ghul (daughter of Liam Neeson’s character from the first film), and with Hugo Strange as well, it could be one villain too many. We’ll have to wait and see though.