Batman Begins

[modage]

well if freeman turns it down, and they've already tried fishburne, they've only got samuel l. jackson left.  because, you know, there are only 3 black people in hollywood, right?

[Pubrick]

well if freeman turns it down, and they've already tried fishburne, they've only got samuel l. jackson left.  because, you know, there are only 3 black people in hollywood, right?

You forgot Denzel.

You forgot Cedric

[cron]

well if freeman turns it down, and they've already tried fishburne, they've only got samuel l. jackson left.  because, you know, there are only 3 black people in hollywood, right?

You forgot Denzel.

You forgot Cedric

[cron]

Brotherhood of the Bat?Wolf man rumored to be Bat-villain.

January 23, 2004 - Cinema Confidential claims that French actor Vincent Cassel (a.k.a. Mr. Monica Bellucci) will be playing a villain in Batman: Intimidation. The site did not specify which villain but the rumor mill has long suggested that The Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul will be Batman's enemies this time out.


According to a script overview that was recently posted online, Ra's henchman is a Frenchman named Ducard. Could that be Cassel's role if he is indeed in the film? Then again Cinema Confidential also says Michael Gough will portray Alfred the butler, which we all know is no longer the case.

Cassel's credits include Brotherhood of the Wolf, Shrek, Elizabeth, Hate, and Crimson Rivers. He's the star of the forthcoming comic book movie Blueberry and will reportedly co-star in Ocean's Twelve. Will the latter project, which begins filming this spring, conflict with Batman's shooting schedule?

In related news, Latino Review has added its voice to the chorus of news sites claiming that Morgan Freeman will play WayneCorp. exec Lucius Fox. They say Freeman has "been in talks and its 90% certain that he will get the part." Laurence Fishburne has also been rumored for the role.

Finally, Superhero Hype has posted what it claims is a description of the new Batmobile.

Thanks to Batman-on-Film for the heads-up on all of this!


-IGN.

[cine]

When was I fired from the news room and replaced by chuck? Why wasn't I notified?

It was probably that joke you made...

[Raikus]

New script review is up. Some story spoilers but it gives a good glimpse as to how they're setting up the story:Read it here

[MacGuffin]

More Gossip on "Batman"  

Superhero Hype scored an in-depth scoop on the next "Batman" which answers some of the recent rumours and adds all sorts of new things:

"The filming begins at the end of next month in Iceland and will continue until mid March before moving to the U.K. Iceland shooting-don't worry, it's not Batman on ice skates-more like all terrain vehicles, with Christian Bale not arriving till around March 1st. One of the cardington hangers being used for the film has large sets of a old train station of some sort, as well as housing the MASSIVE batcave.

Casting. First of all, Morgan Freeman is no longer up for Lucious Fox, but is up for Gordon. Initially he was, but when Chris Cooper refused, Nolan turned to Freeman. Cillian Murphy will play Jonathan Crane, and Katie Homes as Harvey Dents assisstant Rachel. Harvey Dent has yet to be casted, having Guy Pearce be the only one test for that. The role of Earle has been brought up to several people, none of them rather big name stars, but lesser known character actors. Same goes for Boss Carime Falcone. Lucius Fox is also still undecided.

The Batmobile is still being made but is not like "monster truck". Rather it is dark black. If you have the lights shut off, you ain't seeing it. It has twin jet engines in the back, with two small fins over them. It is a two seater and has two tires on the front, that, if looking from the direct front of it, are about 8-10 inches inward compared to the back two, which are slightly larger, but not that noticable. The cars are all going to be equipped with a large variety of gizmos. The jets can burn so hot it creates thick black smoke, and oil slick, all wheel drive, bat hooks, bulletproof windshield, ejection seats, and a t.v.

The costume - jet black as well. It is not spandex, under armor, or even rubber. It is a new material, that can stretch and bend easy, but won't be overly skin tight. Padding in the ribs and chest area as well as the arms and upper legs will be added, with large black boots for the feet. There will be about 4-5 of them. Batman MAY use other vehicles in the film...but I won't spoil that for you now".

[MacGuffin]

Some Official "Batman" Details
 
Variety ran an article today with heaps of new details on the upcoming "Batman" movie set to begin shooting at the end of the month in Iceland:

It's one thing to reinvent a franchise after a few decades. It's another matter to resurrect a series that became overly stylized, even kitschy, and petered out only seven years ago -- and to convince the public that a new film could be something entirely different.

After a disappointing fourth installment, and three false starts at a fifth version, Batman will be born again. But don't call this the latest in the series. Consider it "Batman: Year One."

This time around, it's about the genesis of Batman: How billionaire Bruce Wayne makes a series of decisions that turn him into the Caped Crusader. Batman will be more realistic and less cartoonish. There are no campy villains. Wayne -- younger, more vulnerable, more human -- will be getting as much attention as his masked alter-ego.

"I felt like doing the origins story of the character, which is a story that's never been told before," says Chris Nolan ("Insomnia," "Memento"), who takes the reins of "Batman" from Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher.

Humanity and realism, says Nolan, is the crux of the new pic.

"The world of Batman is that of grounded reality," he says. Burton's and Schumacher's visions were idiosyncratic and unreal. Nolan says, "Ours will be a recognizable, contemporary reality against which an extraordinary heroic figure arises."

Nolan, a self-confessed James Bond fan as a child, is keen on reinventing Wayne as more of a modern-day Bond than hapless playboy -- an action-adventure hero who has mythic qualities and battles the odds to save the world.

With "The Matrix" series over, Warner Bros. is anxious to whip up a franchise to rival Fox's "X-Men" and Sony's "Spider-Man." Since the old Batman quartet was running out of gas, the goal is to rethink the whole thing.

WB Pictures prexy of production Jeff Robinov says, "There's an emotional component to the film which grounds it and really tells us about Bruce Wayne's struggle."

While the new Bruce Wayne is getting emphasis, Nolan, scripter David Goyer and WB have focused on fixing problems that plagued the other pics. For example, Bruce Wayne was too dark and impenetrable and had lost the humorous side found in the comics. The character was basically just dead screen time until Batman appears -- which in the new film may not happen until 40 minutes after it begins.

"If we're successful, the thing that will be talked about a lot and on what we worked on the hardest is that the audience will really care about Bruce Wayne and not just Batman," Goyer says. It doesn't matter how much you spend on special effects -- if it feels hollow, no one gives a damn."

Nolan starts helming the film next month, and its summer 2005 release will prove whether WB has been able to breathe new life into the Caped Crusader -- and to rescue its biggest franchise outside of "Harry Potter."

WB's wants to tap into the "Batman" fan base and bring back audiences that wandered away from the original quartet. The 1997 "Batman & Robin" failed with critics, fans and the B.O., becoming the series' worst performer, with just $107 million domestically.

So the new, untitled "Batman" is getting a complete overhaul, backed by a roughly $150 million budget.

Rather than pit Batman against a new set of supervillains, the new film focuses on how billionaire Bruce Wayne becomes the Dark Knight.

"It's almost impossible to reinvent Batman," says Robinov. "Chris is reintroducing Batman, and it feels smart and cool and fresh. That's no disrespect to the other movies, but it's really Chris' vision of Batman, and that's what we're supporting."

Christian Bale will don the cape and cowl inherited from Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney. Michael Caine (as Alfred), Katie Holmes and Cillian Murphy also star.

There'll be a new Batmobile, a new arsenal of gadgets, a new Batsuit (sans nipples) as well as a new musical theme.

Even Gotham City is getting a facelift. Previous pics made the city seem dark and claustrophobic or garishly stylized. Instead of lensing on sets built inside huge soundstages, the new film will be shot on locations in New York, London and Iceland, assembling pieces of each city to recreate Gotham as a modern-day metropolis.

"Gotham will seem like this great city in a contemporary world and will be created through various cities," Nolan says. "We are trying to avoid a villagey feel for Gotham, as it starts to get claustrophobic."

Goyer -- who penned the successful "Blade" series for New Line and was a former staffer at "Batman" publisher DC Comics -- adds: "As the Batman films progressed, they became increasingly more cartoonish and more like the campy TV show. We think the audience is tired of that, and it's at odds with the way Batman is depicted in the comicbooks over the last decade. Batman is a classic figure whose story is wrapped in tragedy."

Nolan jumps on that theme: "Few superheroes have the sense of purpose and destiny that Batman has. He is driven by an incredible sense of rage, sadness and grief because of the tragedy of his parents' murder at an early age. To me, Batman is the most interesting superhero because he doesn't have any superpowers. He is very human."

The casting of Bale, Nolan hopes, will not only give audiences a younger Batman to root for but also a weighty sense of his true character.

"Bruce Wayne is strong, and the things that are done to him to make him become Batman are all psychological and character-based," Nolan says. "We needed an actor capable of taking us along on this journey and showing the different psychological layers which inspire Bruce to become Batman."

Fans fearing that the new Batman has taken his passport and moved across the pond shouldn't fret, however. Nolan may be a fan of Bond, and the new installment may be made up of a mostly British cast, crew and locations, but Batman's remaining American.

DC Comics not only provided Nolan and Goyer with key elements of Batman's background, it also gave the filmmakers a list of what Goyer jokingly dubs "the 10 Commandments," a set of guidelines that should appear in every Batman story.

"Before they sat down with us, they had already done a tremendous amount of homework," says Paul Levitz, prexy and publisher of DC Comics. "Working with them has been a delight. We haven't been dealing with questions like, 'Is it "Bruce Wayne" or could it be "Bob Wayne" instead?'

"We started on the same emotional and intellectual level. We all want to make a movie that appeals to the most intense Batman fan as well as the person who's never seen a Batman movie or TV show before."

In terms of whether the movie will be too dark, Robinov says the film's more about conflict than darkness: about Batman's internal conflict and what drives him to suit up as a superhero.

The director's feeling the pressure to succeed. "It's an awesome responsibility," Nolan says, "because the fan base for Batman is extraordinary, and there's a lot of emotional investment in the character."

Warner Bros. also is understandably eager not to alienate or disappoint auds and hardcore fans with Batman's latest adventure.

A shroud of secrecy has surrounded the new pic since it was unveiled last year. Nolan and the new film's key creative team are reluctant to reveal too many details of the planned visuals or plot.

But daily updates and details of the new film's plot, characters and production designs are finding their way onto Web sites such as Ain't It Cool News, Batman on Film, Dark Horizons, Chud and Superhero Hype. (Finicky fans praised Bale's casting.)

The last thing Warners wants is a repeat of the early negative buzz that erupted on the Internet after Ain't It Cool News posted its scathing review of an early test screening of "Batman & Robin," which the studio said could have hurt the film's B.O. performance.

If the new film succeeds, WB's "Batman" franchise will have found a new direction for its sequels to take and compete with Sony's juggernaut "Spider-Man" and Fox's "X-Men" adventures.

[MacGuffin]

Chicago Business revealed that a mystery $35 Million dollar project will be shooting in Chicago. Well, Sir Michael Caine has revealed that Batman Intimidation is the mystery film being shot there, in an interview with 15 Minutes Magazine:

Is it true you’re in the new Christian Bale-Batman film?
Yes, I’m Alfred, Batman’s butler and guardian and the film is being done  by  British director  Christopher Nolan who did Memento. That’s an incredible choice because instead of playing it safe with a run of the mill,  plodding director as they usually do, they’ve gone for experimental. I think he’ll make a great picture.

Isn’t Batman a bit old hat now?
This one is different, less comic-booky, and it starts with Batman as a baby. I am not a guy who just runs around with cups and saucers.  The movie will all be shot in England in a huge Zepplin hangar in Hertfordshire, with some days in Chicago which will double for Gotham.

[Gloria]

The more I hear about this movie, the more excited I get about seeing it.  So far so good....

[MacGuffin]

Dark Knight vs. Jedi Knight?
Source: Cinescape

While director Christopher Nolan continues to gather together the pieces for his next film, BATMAN: INTIMIDATION GAME, and prepares for a spring start to filming, we've received word from a trustworthy source that there is a new actor circling for a possible BATMAN role. While the actor in question has never been mentioned before in any of the BATMAN casting speculation heard so far, our source insists that they are "very likely" connected to the film now. Our source just doesn't know what role the actor is playing in the picture.

According to the source, the actor that seems to now be involved in the cast of BATMAN: INTIMIDATION GAME is Liam Neeson. A star of numerous films over the past two decades, Neeson's best known for playing Oscar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film SCHINDLER'S LIST. Genre fans will also know him as the bearded Jedi Master of young Obi-Wan Kenobi in STAR WARS, EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE. He even played a superhero that echoed elements of DC's Dark Knight in Sam Raimi's 1990 film DARKMAN.

Again, our source doesn't know which role Neeson would be (or is) playing in Nolan's BATMAN picture. If we were to speculate on possibilities, Neeson could be playing Captain Jim Gordon, the future Commissioner of Police of Gotham City...or he could just as easily be R'as al Ghul, the whispered main villain of the movie. Or maybe it's some other character that we haven't heard of yet. All we know at this time is that Neeson is either already in the cast of BATMAN or he's teetering on the cusp of being in that film's roster of talent. We'll know shortly which one it is.

[MacGuffin]

Freeman & Neeson Join Chris Nolan's Batman
Source: Variety

Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson are confirmed to have joined the cast of Warner Bros.' new Batman film, reports Variety.

Freeman will play Lucius Fox, a respected businessman and the CEO of billionaire Bruce Wayne's mega-conglom, based in Gotham City. Liam Neeson plays the villain, Ra's al Ghul, a wealthy international terrorist.

[Gold Trumpet]

I didn't know Liam Neeson was arab.

[Raikus]

I really can't picture Neeson as Ra's ah Ghul. Ra's ah Ghul had a sleek profile, hard lines, oh and NO IRISH ACCENT.

Neeson's to pudgy.

I know they want big names but why couldn't that have gone for someone like Oded Fehr?

[Gloria]

Ben Kingsley would have been the best Ra's Al Ghul, but I don't mind Liam Neeson (it could have been much, much worse.)  However, he has to lose the Irish accent and change his hair.  I am more worried about how they develop Ra's character.  I hope they consult the comics and the cartoon.  He better not seem like 'just another bad guy' because this guy was very different from the other Batman villians.