Interesting.Ladies and gentlemen, we have a title.
Christopher Nolan has announced that his third Batman film will be called The Dark Knight Rises, according to an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“We’ll use many of the same characters as we have all along, and we’ll be introducing some new ones,” Nolan said in the interview, adding that the villain “won’t be the Riddler.” Hmm… curiouser and curiouser, right?
The movie is due out in July 20, 2012, which may put it on the tail end of the Avengers film, due out on May 4 of the same year.
On one hand, it would have been a challenge to adapt the Riddler to the Nolan-verse. Their best shot would have been to take a page from Paul Dini's revamp from the last few years.
On the other hand...they've already used the major Gotham Rogues that could conceivably work within the Nolan-verse. The only ones that could work at this point would be Penguin, Catwoman or Talia. Talia would be a nice way to come full circle and have Bruce facing the repercussions for stopping the League of Shadows in the first film.