There is lots of speculation going around as to who should be the next villain when they do a sequel to The Dark Knight. Let’s not fool ourselves, Warner Brothers will do one with or with out Nolan. On top of that he will probably cave when they drive a dump truck of money up to his house and the good old delivery guy of yesteryear knocks on his door and goes “Delivery for Mr. Nolan. Sign here please.”
However, with all of the speculation going around on who will be the next villain and who should play them and all that jazz, there are a few that are just glaring enough for me to go “Nuh uh, you’re just being ridiculous.” I believe I have a pretty solid reasons for these other than they just won’t fit the universe that Nolan has created or whatever it may be. Just to be fair, I will go ahead and list those off that would not fit the universe that Nolan has created:
1. Mr. Freeze
2. Clayface
3. Man-Bat
Okay, those are off the table of the more well-known villains. I won’t get into the time that Batman fought (obscure villain).
#5 – Harley Quinn
I don’t know how many times I have heard this name attached as a potential villain for the next film.
It just wouldn’t work. No Joker = No Harley Quinn. Really, it just comes down to being that simple.
I’ve heard a scenario of “She’s a copy cat of the Joker, an admirer.” Wouldn’t work. It’d be too much like the TDK, just with a different character that wasn’t The Joker trying to be The Joker.
4. Two Face (Harvey Dent)
Yes, dead. Dead as a doornail.
Yet people still believe through Hollywood magic that they could bring him back for the next movie and it’ll be great, here’s my idea…
No, he’s dead.
Christopher Nolan is far too smart of a director and writer to even consider that kind of mess. It’d be cheap, very cheap, and it would end up pissing off a lot of people in the process, myself included. Besides, it would ruin the whole ending of the last film. “You were the best of us!” and all that. How would they also deal with the Batman backlash that was occurring during the end of the film? Sure, there were a few other murders thrown in there, but Dent was huge. That was one of the main reasons they had to hunt Batman like they did.
Harvey Dent/Two Face is dead. Get over it.
3. Hush
I like Hush. It’s probably one of my favorite Batman runs featuring one of my all time favorite Batman writers, Jeph Loeb. It also wouldn’t make a very good movie.
Don’t get me wrong, the plot of Hush will have you turning pages until you reach the very end. I know it did for me. The problem is that to pull it off, and pull it off right, you would need an absolute rogue’s gallery of villains that this series of movies just doesn’t have. Minus a few, almost every one of the major villains was used or manipulated in this run. Just to name a few off the top of my head you would need Poison Ivy, The Joker (re-cast), Harley Quinn, Harvey Dent (alive and reformed), Catwoman… The list goes on. Add on top of that introducing the character of Tommy Elliot and also the master mind of it all The Riddler and by the time you got all the introductions and character development out of the way you’d be about 3 hours in. Oh and did I mention you also have a trip to Metropolis and Superman involved?
2. The Mad Hatter
A mentally ill man who rhymes and frequently quotes from Louis Carol books…
Maybe as a side villain, he’s too mentally unstable in my book to be able to actually pull anything off. The only reason that he even gets mentioned is because people go “Oooh, Johnny Depp is playing him in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland…” This usually comes from the local Johnny Depp freak who just wants him to be in everything.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Depp. I think for the most part everything he does is excellent. At the same time, I feel he’s a little over hyped by some of the people who follow his work and honestly think he’s a good actor… or just think he’s hot and wants him to be in as many movies as possible… or both.
1. Catwoman
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Selina Kyle/Catwoman hater. I just don’t think she’d be right for the tone of the Nolan-verse. In this universe, and for the main public, Batman needs to have a villain that is genuinely bad. The thing about Catwoman is that she does have some version of a twisted moral code of her own.
Besides, after Catwoman I think we could all agree that perhaps we just need to leave that one alone for a little while…
Now, for who I would like to see?
I don’t know entirely. I have to say I think The Riddler could be interesting. It would have to be set up more like a mystery though, and that’s the only problem I see to it. I’d like to see something along the lines of The Holiday killer from The Long Halloween or something along those lines. It’d be interesting to see them reach a little bit more into the cerebral with some of Batman’s detective skills.
Regardless, I have faith that when and if they actually do make it, and if Nolan is signed on, we’ll end up with a helluva good film. Maybe not as good as TDK was, but still a damn good film.
I agree with a few of your choices of characters that shouldnt be put in the film but in my view Nolan is taking Batman characters and changing them to fit into the Gotham City he created. Clayface doesnt have to be like the Clayface from the Comics. He could be a messed up ganster a replacement, a better version of the two who were in BB and TDK. I mean any character can be reworked to fit into a universe. Marvel is doing that with Iron Man, they made Mandarin and the twelve rings a terrorist network Why cant Nolan do the same?
I agree with most of that except for one person…
Harley Quinn.
Now, it would be a logical step since the Joker was simply sent to Arkham Assylum and is obviously not dead. I can easily see it happening and she is introduced right after The Joker has made her completely insane. I think it could be done well, especially if she is basically used as revenge to get Batman back. ‘Course, i could see a Catwoman too but it would be a stretch for me… a huge, huge stretch.
My pics for the next movie should be….
The Riddler (Played by David Tennent)
and
The Penguin (new mob boss penguin)
…
and maybe this is the fanboy in me but Harley Quinn (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar)
…
I dunno, just geeking out all over the place. Great blog by they way. Tag me in more of them, I’d love to read ‘em.
I think they should use zatz in the next film he would fit with a dark storyline and hes mentioned in the first movie briefly (shown exiting the court room before whe waynes murderer goes on trial) hes an interesting character and would make a fantastic batman movie villian even if his character is not very well known.
hey I’m not a catwoman hater either. she’s actually one of my fav female characters along with harley. i wouldn’t mind seeing her in a batman movie but the thing is is that that crappy (yes i said CRAPPY) halle berry movie has everyone disagreeing (hopefully i spelled that right). catwoman needed to be played by someone a little more muscular,not super skinny! and since when is she GOOD? all I’m sayin’ is that, first off, she can’t really carry a movie by herself. halle is kinda too weak tho…
I aim to prove you wrong about 3 of the 5 you mentioned.
My company is currently in the works for creating a sequel to TDK. The writers have worked tirelessly to re-create the characters of Harley Quinn, The Mad Hatter, and Catwoman.
I can’t go into too much detail about how big their roles in the film will be, but I can tell you that you will be pleasantly surprised.
Otherwise, I completely agree with you. Excellent blog. Glad to read something not posted by someone who is figuratively stuck up Johnny Depp’s anus. I feel strongly towards laying Catwoman to rest for a long while, so you can bet we will do Nolan justice with our Catwoman.
And to re-iterate… people, Harvey Dent/Two Face IS DEAD. Listen to the man, he’s telling the truth.
For more information, check out: http://www.myspace.com/misguided_shadow_films
I don’t know about Mr. Freeze definitely not working in the Nolan-verse; granted the special effects probably wouldn’t fit in with the other movies, but I think the character has a good background that could *somehow* be worked in…can you tell I’m a Mr. Freeze fan, lol?
Moving on, though, I do agree with the majority of this list. At first, when I saw Hush, I was like, “What? Hush is a great villain and would totally work in the Nolan-verse!” And then I read on to your reasoning why; suddenly, it made sense and I moved on. I also agree with the Mad Hatter not being the main villain, though I think it would be fun to see him pop up at the beginning as almost a cameo thing.
If I had to pick some villains for the next movie…
Black Mask (although the mob thing has been done quite a bit already in this series), maybe by Clive Owen? First name that popped into my head, so he probably doesn’t fit at all.
Maybe Deadshot?; don’t have any ideas for him, and I think perhaps he may be too similar to Deadpool to be brought in after Wolverine came out.
Hugo Strange; I think he’d make an interesting villain, particularly as the public will be striking out at Batman after Harvey Dent’s death. I’ve heard Armin Shimerman as a suggestion, and I think I’d like to see someone like Powers Boothe or even Kevin Spacey.
And of course, the Riddler. I heard a good suggestion about David Tennant; he’d kill with that role. I’d love to see David Hyde Pierce in the role; I remember watching the original animated series as a kid and thinking of “that guy from ‘Frasier’.”
I dunno; those are just my thoughts.
I can agree with most of your list, but over the years of batman movies, cartoons, and comics, I think one of my favorite villains is Harley Quinn. With Heath Ledger dead and (unfortunately, hopefully) the character of The Joker remaining out of the next movies (unless they can fully clone and recreate Heath Ledger), my dream of seeing her in a movie will probably never come to be. With how dark and twisted they made this version of Joker, I was incredibly excited to find out what they could do with her in a sequel.
Catwoman needs to go sit in a vault for awhile until the bad taste and worse memories of that craptastic halle berry movie are gone from the public mind for good. It’s unfortunate, but true.
Most of the Batman villains are so incredibly over the top (many are really unrealistic but amazing) that it would be hard to include them in the new gritty and “realistic” Batman universe without changing their story (as with Dent).
I would love to see something with the Lazarus Pits and Ra’s al Ghul’s daughters, or Poison Ivy, but I can’t see how that would work exactly.
I agree with most of your list, but I think Nolan will not follow the comic plot so directly. I mean, he changed the modus openrandi, quite abit of his creation and relationships of 2-face (far more direct vengeance) , and to a certain extent, the Joker (he’s more of a chaotic anarchist in the movie, with none of the deadly gimmicks like Joker Venom). I’m pretty sure he could compress Hush, or change his modus operandi to concentrate more on his vengeance towards Bruce Wayne.