Can you imagine another Batman film that doesn’t involve director Christopher Nolan? Well, if Christian Bale is right, you might have to.

In a new interview with MTV to promote his new movie, Public Enemies, Christian Bale was asked about the status of a third Batman film with director Christopher Nolan.

I truly don’t know that we’re ever going to see another Batman movie. It would be purely that [Christopher Nolan] would need to find a story that was good enough. and if he couldn’t find that it wouldn’t happen.

The prevailing rumor has been that Nolan’s original plan called for The Joker to feature heavily in a third film’s plot, but with the passing of Heath Ledger, whom won an Academy Award for the role, those plans came to a halt.  Nolan is reluctant to recast the role, understandably, and so he is left without a story idea he likes.

While Bale is under contract for a third film, Nolan is not.  So I hate to break the news to Bale, but, yes, we will indeed see a third film.  As Box Office Mojo shows, The Dark Knight grossed $533,345,358 domestic, and $468,576,467 internationally for a total of $1,001,921,825 on a $185 million dollar budget.  There is no way there will not be a third Batman film, and it will indeed star Bale unless he finds a way to weasel out of his contract.  The only reason I don’t think there has been any official word on it yet is that Warner Brothers wants to have an official refusal from Nolan as there is no reason to break up a successful team if they don’t have to.

The only other problem right now is Nolan’s latest project, Inception, which is due for release on July 16, 2010.  With pre-production time, there is no way Nolan would be ready to shoot a third Batman until 2011, meaning that the film would be released in summer 2012 at the earliest, a full 4 years since The Dark Knight.

This is an interesting parallel between the last series of Batman films and this one.  After Batman Returns, both Michael Keaton and Tim Burton walked away from the series, and we were award with Batman Forever and Batman & Robin being directed by Joel Schumacher.  I don’t think I have to remind any one just how badly that turned out.  So there is a definite precedent with this character of the fact you shouldn’t mess with success.

I think there are a ton of story ideas that could work for the third film, and they could fit in perfectly with what we were left with at the end of The Dark Knight, as weall as the more realistic world Batman inhabits in these films.  One of my regular readers named Jack made an excellent argument in the comments of my post about The Dark Knight passing $1 billion box office for a “Hunt the Batman” motif.  He was a fugitive at the end of the third film, why not make the Batman himself the “villain” of the third film even as he attempts to save the city from itself?  Could Bruce Wayne continue to reason that saving a city that wants his head is really worth it?

Another friend of mine even suggested how they could use the well-known villain The Penguin without it being over the top.  These films have set up a large mob syndicate operates in Gotham, why not make him the new mob guy who moves in to town and just happens to like wearing tuxedos?  This would lead to him being called “The Penguin” in crime circles, and you could keep the bird motif of the character.  No need for him to be the mutated freak he is usually shown as.

There are a lot of possabilities still out there, and hopefully Nolan will reconsider once he has some more space between himself and the second film.

Does anyone remember Megaforce? If you don’t, be thankful, but I think we’re about to experience it again.

In June 1982 there was a movie released that was so bad it set a whole new benchmark for suckatude.  That lucky film was Megaforce.  Considering I was a month short of turning 11-years-old, I wanted to see it.  I remember my father took me, and after it was over he turned to me and asked me what I thought of it.  At the ripe old age of 10-years-old and 11-months I said, “Well… the vehicles were cool.”

Yep, I was already critical of movies.

On later viewings I realized just how bad it was, and when I say it was bad, I mean it was trauma inducing bad.  I think my eyes actually bled at one point.

Unfortunately, this latest G.I. Joe – The Rise of Cobra trailer makes me think of the same thing.  The unfortunate part is that this time it is based on a beloved property that was loved by many kids in the 1980’s.  Instead of a popcorn action flick, we’re getting something with slapstick comedy, impossibly stupid “accelerator suits” and sub-par line delivery.  So help me, the trailer for this makes Transformers look high class, and that’s saying a lot for me.

If this wasn’t bad enough, you can check out a full scene from G.I. Joe – The Rise of Cobra here.

Did we really expect a version of Alice in Wondeland directed by Tim Burton to be anything less than trippy?

The above image, taken from some amazing panoramic shots over at USA Today, is the first official in-film shot we’ve seen from the March 2011 film.  While I at first thought this was going to be a retelling of the original tale, it turns out it is more a sequel to the story we know.  At age 17, Alice runs away from a Victorian party where she is about to be proposed to in front of people she doesn’t care for.  As she runs, she sees a white rabbit and follows him down the hole… I know, it sounds familiar, but this is where the twist comes in.  It seems that Alice visited Wonderland 10 years ago, but she has no recollection of it.  However, the residents of this whimsical world certainly remember her.

While I am always up for a Tim Burton film, this reminds me a bit too much of the box office failure, Hook.  For those who don’t remember the 1991 film, it was the story of what happened to Peter Pan after he left Neverland and grew up.  He gets sucked back in to his old him as an adult man after his two children end up there as prisoners of Captain Hook.  While I enjoyed the movie, it never was very well received.  This “sequel” of Burton’s has a bit of the same story vibe to it, so I’m a bit concerned about how the public will react to it.

All that being said, it does have an amazing cast:

• Mia Wasikowska – Alice Kingsley
• Johnny Depp – The Mad Hatter
• Anne Hathaway – The White Queen
• Helena Bonham Carter – The Red Queen
• Alan Rickman – The Caterpillar
• Christopher Lee – The Jabberwock
• Stephen Fry – The Cheshire Cat
• Crispin Glover – The Knave of Hearts
• Matt Lucas – Tweedledee / Tweedledum

Amazing cast, although it does feature some of Tim Burton’s usual rogue’s gallery.  Here are some of the first official character shots.

Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter.  As soon as this project was announced I knew this would be Depp’s role.  This marks the seventh film the two have worked on together.

Seeing as Helena Bonham Carter is Burton’s wife, you knew she’d be in this also.  The over-sized head is supposed to fit in the The Red Queen’s “off with their head” saying.

Anne Hathaway enters the world of Burton for the first time as The White Queen.

Seeing as this film is also going to be 3D… you know, I’ve never taken an illegal drug in my life, but somehow I think I’m going to get a feeling for the sensation after seeing this in the theater.

UPDATE 06/24/09

The first picture of Matt Lucas as Tweedledee and Tweedledum has now been released.

Apparently George Lucas and Steven Spielberg want another go at destroying my fond childhood memories of three fun movies.

Shia LaBeouf, who was one of the worst things in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is out doing press for Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, and the subject of Indiana Jones 5 has come up. During one such he interview he said, “Steven just said that he cracked the story on it, and I think they’re gearing that up”.

Please, no.

Considering the last film being pretty universally panned, to the point South Park dedicated a whole episode to just what a train wreck it was, you have to wonder why they would even ponder doing a fifth.

Money, plain and simple.

The fourth film cost $185 million to produce, according to Box Office Mojo, it grossed $317,101,119 domestically and $469,534,914 foreign for a total of $786,636,033.  An impressive haul no matter how you slice it, but then you have to look at what the Harrison Ford, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg took home from it.  Only Harrison Ford’s take is known for sure, and according to Forbes, Mr. Ford struck a deal with the studio that split the film’s profits between him and Lucas & Spielberg.  How much did Indiana Jones himself take home?  Between June 2008 and June 2009 it is estimated that the fourth film made him $65 million.

Yes… $65 million.  Is it any wonder these guys would want to return to the well for a fifth outing?

There is no known schedule currently for this film, but I would imagine they will try to film it in 2010.  Michael Bay is taking some time off from Transformers even though Paramount wanted a third film  for July 2011, that would have meant pre-production would have had to start this September, with filming happening in summer 2010.  Bay has requested the release be moved to July 2012, which means filming will begin in summer 2011, so LaBeouf should be available for a good chunk of 2010.  So, if I was a betting man, yes, this film will happen and you are probably looking at a summer 2011 release.

Prepare the vomit bags… while Lucas, Spielberg and Ford laugh all the way to the bank.

Two clips for Transformers Revenge of the Fallen have been released, and, yes, one of them has me worried about the sequel also.

For some reason these two clips have shown up dubbed in German and French, and also subtitled in Japanese, but they are no where to be found in clean English versions.  Why the foreign markets are getting these and not the United States is a mystry to me, but thanks to the Internet, it doesn’t really matter.

From my understanding of the film I’ve put the two clips in the order they appear in the movie, not that it really matters as they don’t tell you much.  First up is N.E.S.T., an international team of soldiers tasked with locating and stopping Decepticons, as they arrive in Shanghai to take on Demolisher, a Terex O&K RH 400 Hydraulic Mining Excavator.

Next up is a scene with Mikaela (Megan Fox) talking with Sam (Shia LaBeouf) as a bit of the plot of the movie is gien away, and new Decepticon Wheelie attempts to steal the All Spark cube shard shown at the end of the first movie. (Now updated with a copy without subtitles!)

Oh good grief. Why does Wheelie have what can only be described as a New Jersey accent and is talking in 1940’s gangster movie style slang?  What is Michael Bay’s obsession with comic relief in these movies?  Not only do we have Wheelie to contend with, but also Skids & Mudflap, also known as “the twins”, have been described as comic relief also.  It would be a tragedy if Bay actually made a decent, coherent film some day, but one can always hope it might might happen.

Be sure to check out the pictures of the robots from Transformes Revenge of the Fallen.

The first image of Mickey Rourke as the villain Whiplash in Iron Man 2 has been released (click the image to the right for a much larger & complete image) and it is an… interesting look?

As with almost every comic book character that makes it to the big screen, numerous changes have been made to Whiplash.  You can read the rather lengthy official bio over at the Marvel Comics website, but essentially he was an American that went to work for Stark Industries (as in Tony Stark’s company), fell in with a bad crowd, became a supper villain… you know how that goes.  Well, somehow in the moie he is now Russian, and reportedly just escaped from prison (check the orange outfit on his lower half in the large picture).

When it was first reported that Rourke was playing a Russian villain in the film, the natural conclusions where that he was either playing Titanium Man or The Crimson Dynamo, but instead they have to mess around with another character for no good reason.  Luckily I have a lot of trust in Jon Favreau as a director and storyteller, so I won’t totally scratch my head at this one yet, but it does seem like a totally unnecessary change.

If you’re wondering about the lighted piece on his chest looking so much like Iron Man’s, Mr. Favreau said to USA Today that is intentional and somehow figures into the plot of the film.  I have my suspicions of how, but I won’t spoil it for those who aren’t familiar with the overall driving forces of the Iron Man series.

Iron Man 2 is due for release May 7th, 2010 with Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell (playing Justin Hammer), Scarlett Johansson (playing Black Widow), Don Cheadle and Samuel L. Jackson.

Are you a squealing teenage girl? Have access to your parents credit cards? Then have I got the deal for you!

Nothing says “Lets celebrate our love of vampires” more than taking a cruise ship from Seattle, WA to ports in Alaska for a week.  For a the low, low price of $1200, you too can hang out a cruise ship filled with squealing girls while you discuss the books and movies, browse the dealer’s room, visit with Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen) and Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen) from the movie, watch the movies with a large group…

Okay, yeah, I can’t even fake sounding positive about Twilight Cruise 2010 any more.  I understand that people have all sorts of different fandoms and so on, but the idea of a cruise ship filled with primarily squealing teenage girls for a week would make my head explode.  (Which, by the way, has anyone checked to see if there is a giant bulls eye on top of the ship yet?  Sounds like a perverts dream come true)

Now, if a week on the cruise ship isn’t enough, you can also book an extra pre-cruise event where you go to Forks, WA and explore locations described in the books.  That’s a seperate fee… and then there is $150 on top of the cruise price for admittance into the events on the cruise ship (which implies non-Twilight people will be on the ship… oh how I pity those people)… okay, anyone remember we’re in a recession?  Anyone think Twilight is going to be anywhere nearly as popular in a year as it is now?

-waits for people to stop throwing things at him-

Look, I’ve been around enough fandoms over the years now to know how fast they fizzle out.  And don’t think it’s just me thinking this… haven’t you wondered why the movies are coming out so fast?  Lets take a look at the release schedule of the first three movies, shall we?

Twilight – 11/20/08

The Twilight Saga: New Moon – 11/21/09

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – 6/30/10

Three movies in a span of 19-months?  Anyone else ever seen movie adaptations come out that fast?  Yeah, didn’t think so.  See, this is called “cashing in before fickle teenagers move on to the next ‘hot’ thing.”  It would be nice if people thought about this before they book this cruise, but whatever, it should be a fun filled week filled with a lot of swooning, fake vampire teeth and smudges of eye-liner all over the ship from all the fans wearing too much of it.

In the mean time, check out this video of an actor from the movies taking on the fans you may find on this cruise.

There’s going to be a fifth Alien movie… oh joy.

The rumor started circulating earlier this week that 20th Century Fox was going to remake the original Alien movie.  This sent sci-fi and Ridley Scott fans in to a frothing-at-the-mouth rampage that could have very well cost someone their lives.  Luckily Collider.com talked with Tony Scott, Ridley’s brother, about it at a press event for The Taking of Pelham 123, and luckily he cleared up the fact that is actually a prequel to the original film, and will be directed by relative newcomer Carl Rinsch.

If this somehow finally answers the questions fans have had about the crashed egg carrier in the first film, I’ll be all for it, but otherwise, do we really need it?

I’m a bit of an oddity when it comes to the series as I have enjoyed all four films, and don’t have an out right hate for any of them as most do.  I feel all four films are very different studies of similar themes, and each has its pros and cons.  So while I don’t just dismiss a prequel outright, I’m just not sure we really need it.  Do we really want to know where the aliens come from?  Even though fans have questions about the Space Jockey (the huge corpse you see in the first film in the egg carrier), do we really need to know the answers

Heck, we don’t even know yet what this film will address or if it will go off in some total weird angle no one has thought of before.  Some reports indicate it will deal with the events immediately preceding the first film which would lead me to believe it has something to do with how and why the Weiland-Yutani Company knew to direct the Nostromo to the planet LV-426 in the first place, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

The current plan calls for production to begin by the end of the year, but no release date has yet been set, but it will probably be summer 2011.

What would you like to see addressed in a prequel?

The G.I. Joe movie looks worse and worse with each passing moment.

While I always thought the G.I. Joe property was ripe for a movie, they seem to hae gone out of their way to make this thing look like a complete cheese fest.  I thought the Super Bowl ad looked bad, but this new clip is just horrendous.  I can live with the Baroness (Sienna Miller) not having an accent, but these power suits the Joe team are just… I just don’t get them.

At no point in the 25+ years of this version of G.I. Joe featured in the movie did they wear “power suits”.  They wore battle armor, went into space and even fought a war on drugs, but they never put on silver suits that gave them super human strength and agility.  So why does this movie feel the need for them?  There is more than enough back story out there already to build multiple movies, but they felt the neex to build something so over the top that it een looks bad?  Good job folks!

I actually was looking forward to this movie for a while, but I think all of that interest is now gone.  Judge for yourself below.

I don’t normally get all that excited about fan made stuff.  I have nothing against it as a hobby, I just don’t ever see much point to watching them.  Well, seeing as I am suffering a bout of writer’s block on the article I’m working on, and someone Tweeted about a fan made Green Lantern trailer, and I thought, “Oh, what the heck”, so I checked it out.

Wow.

This is one of the best fan made videos I’ve seen, and yes, I know that the majority of the footage comes from other films, but it works, and it works well.  And, I have to say, seeing Nathan Fillion in connection with Hal Jordan, he would be excellent in the role,but I don’t expect him to get it.

I would say for those of you unfamiliar with the mythos of the Green Lanterns, this covers it pretty well.  I’m not sure how much the movie will deal with the other members of the Green Lantern Corps, it was a cool concept seeing so many of the recognizable members in there. (Kilowog and Tomar-Re to name a couple)

Good job to whomever made this, lets hope Warner Brothers treats the property with as much reverence as you did.

No.

Really, what else can you say about the idea of a totally new Buffy, The Vampire Slayer movie that will probably not involve Joss Whedon, the creator of the concept?  According to the Hollywood Reporter, that may be exactly what we are in store for.

The 1992 movie was produced by Kuzui Enterprises which still owns the rights to the character to this day.  They obtained the rights after Fran Rubel Kuzui, the eventual director of the film, found the script by the then unknown Joss Whedon.  Her husband, Kaz Kuzui, obtained the financing they needed and… it was a disaster.  Although it technically made a profit on its modest $7 million budget, it only grossed $16 million at the box office, and it was viewed as a flop.

When it came time for the series, the Kuzui’s still owned the rights to Buffy herself, but not the characters created specifically for the series such as Willow, Xander, Angel and Spike.  While the series was a success, and even went to spin off a seperate series, it appears that the Kuzui’s feel it could do with, you guessed it, a “reboot”.

Roy Lee and Doug Davison of Vertigo Entertainment are working with the Kuzui’s to secure a studio and funding to launch an entirely new relaunched franchise that would ignore the television series, and would be separate of the first movie.  The plan is for a darker, eent-sized movie that would set up its own history, and hopefully launch a whole new franchise.

The problem is that at this time Joss Whedon is in no way involved with the project.  While it isn’t unusual for reboots/relaunches to not involve their original creators, you are talking about a beloved property that has one of the most loyal fan bases out there.  Die hard fans of Whedon and the original works will more than likely avoid this new movie like it has the plague.  True, we aren’t the entire potential audience for this movie, but without the long time fans behind it, it’s easy to imagine things won’t bode well for this project.

Hopefully someone will come to their senses and kill this before it gets anywhere close to being a reality.

Sherlock Holmes is back… with a really different take.

Guy Ritchie, a very stylized film director from England, has decided to take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous character, Sherlock Holmes.  Mr. Ritchie is best known for his movies set deep inside of England’s crime world such as Lock,nd Two Smok Stock aing Barrels, Snatch and RocknRolla. While he has done other movies, these are what he is best known for, and a period piece that utilizes one of the best known fictional characters ever certainly is not his norm.

Starring Robert Downey Jr. as the famous detective, and is joined by Jude Law as Dr. Watson and Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, the trailer below certainly has a unique look at an old version of London, but you can also see a lot of Ritchie’s trademark directing dispersed through out the clips.  If you’ve ever watched one Ritchie film, you know his love of slow motion, and it’s here in full force.  Will such a modern director and tactics work in this setting?  You be the judge.

It isn’t due for release until December 25th of this year, but I’m already looking forward to it.