Agreed. But no one else can play him but Neil Patrick Harris.
I don’t know about Batman villains, but could Terry O’Quinn play one of them ? That’d be great.
There is no fanwanking involved. When I saw the Dark Knight I saw heath Ledger’s Joker as the character as if he had walked out of the comic book pages and up onto the big screen. They took out a lot of the silliness, but left in the dark edge, and the psychopathic humor.
The Killing Joke both retold the Red Hood Origin of The Joker, and at the same time threw it into question when Joker states that he can never remember how he started. This is echoed in the Dark Knight when he tells everyone a different version of how he was given the smile. No, Ledger’s The Joker did not have the same face as the comic book version. But, that does not mean the character is that much different. He is a sadistic monster that uses humor when inflicting pain on others. He considers Batman the yin to his yang. He has a laugh that fills up the page. He really likes purple suits.
When The Joker killed Robin in the comic book he didn’t use a trick weapon. He beat him with a crowbar and then set a bomb to go off to kill him and his mother. This seems like something Heath Ledger’s character would do.
When The Joker shot Barbara Gordon. He didn’t use a trick weapon. He shot her with a revolver in front of Commissioner Gordon. This, also, seems like something Heath Ledger’s character would do.
I am not sure how the character is significantly different from the character that appears in the books. Yes, it is much different from The Joker of Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson. But, it shares as much in common with The Joker from the pages of the comic books as they do. They each picked and chose different aspects.
I’ve been saying that Killer Croc is the perfect fit for a Nolan Batman movie since Batman Begins. Ignore the fact that in the comics he’s been turned into a rip-off of the Lizard for a while and go back to the original version - an enormously muscled dude with a skin condition that makes him look monstrous. Wonderfully creepy.
Pair him with Penguin or Riddler as a cerebral threat and you’ve got yourself a movie.
Mmm. Maybe Rupert Thorne. Thorne’s generally a bit…heftier than O’Quinn, but it’s not quite as important for him as it is for Penguin. But Thorne’s a simple gangster, not one of the colourful types.
Could possibly pull of Black Mask, I suppose.
Information-broker Calculator.
He’d make a good Mr Freeze, if not for the fact that anything recognizable as Mr Freeze isn’t workable in the Nolanverse.
Not in the next movie, but I think in a later movie, they could just cast Mark Hamil to play the Joker (again). If you’ve ever seen Mark Hamil do the Joker (as opposed to seeing his version of the Joker in the cartoons), you could definitely see he’d make a pretty convincing movie joker (maybe he had plastic surgery to hide his face, or maybe it’s a crazy copy-cat, just like Batman had his copy-bats). It helps that Mark Hamil’s not exactly a pretty guy (IIRC, his face is mildly deformed from an auto accident he was in back in the late 70’s).
Also, I’d totally watch a movie with Talia al Ghul. Eva Mendez maybe?
Hell, I’ve been saying since TDK came out that we might expect a Nolanized Robin. Lose the camp, lose the cape, give him a pair of pants, and basically make him a parkour vigilante with a vendetta against the Mafia for killing his folks. As has been pointed out, the city is going crazy with all sorts of weirdos coming out of the woodwork (Scarecrow, Joker, Two Face, not to mention the dude running around dressed like a bat), and we’ve already had wannabe vigilantes. Maybe one of those vigilantes will get a clue and actually be competent?
Isn’t he a bit old, now? He’s 58 years old. That’s older than Jack Nicholson (52) when he played the Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman. He’d resemble Cesar Romero from the TV series than anything else.
Since Batman Begins loosely followed Year One (with a Knightfall story for the Scarecrow) and The Dark Knight loosely followed The Long Halloween, I’d expect the next one to resemble Dark Victory. After TLH, Batman and Gordon blame themselves for what happened to Dent and Batman becomes even more of a loner. I haven’t read it in awhile, but it ties up the Falcone/Maroni/mob stuff and really brings out the freaks in Gotham as the villains. It also introduces Robin…
Other than appearance, this Penguin is no different than Ledger’s Joker. How, for example, would the crimes reflect the character?
In the traditional interpretation, the Penguin is a symbol of lost prosperity, a man who (in his mind) has suffered an undeserved fall from grace. You could probably establish this in a number of ways (e.g. he’s swindled of his inheritance by greedy siblings), but simple revenge (even aimless or unjustified vengeance) is a tired theme. Also, making him a crime boss really doesn’t differentiate him from all the other crimelords we’ve seen in BB and TDK–his danger isn’t really that unique.
No, I think the limited motivations of the character almost require you to give him something else to make him special–a horrible deformity or access to unusual devices, but Danny DeVito and Burgess Meredith’s silly gas umbrellas have shown us where that way lies.
This is the obvious direction for this character, but as others have pointed out, when you present a puzzle the audience is motivated to solve it. It’s usually either way too easy or so convoluted that it’s frustrating. In the second case, this is dangerous territory for most movies; watching characters do things and strive for a goal is far more entertaining than watching them ponder or explain a brainteaser.
Someone mentioned the Zodiac as a potential prototype, and there was a pretty good movie based on this killer. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know the movie succeeded by focusing on the toll the investgation was taking on the police and newspapermen following him–virtually no time was spent with the Zodiac himself. Ditto (until the last 15 minutes) the killer in “Seven”. If Nolan follows these examples, the Riddler won’t have much screen time or will be reduced to lonely, brooding scenes in his Unabomber cabin, i.e. the opportunities for a true action sequence are limited. It would be interesting to see if it could work in sequel, which is why I think this would be the most promising one to try next.
This isn’t bad; there are a lot of action angles you could play with the eco-terrorist, and of course she’d be a femme fatale (all female villains are). I wonder if she could be financing her terrorism by cooking meth a la Breaking Bad, when she stumbles across an especially terrifying formula (but watch out or you’re repeating the Scarecrow)?
But this one…a brain-washing pedophile who like Lewis Carrol–how can you not make that ridiculous?
I really, really disagree with the latter.
Huh. I’d go the other way. I’ve always believed Hannigan’s characters, to the point where I have trouble separating them from her.
Yes, yes, yes please on David Tennant as Riddler.
I can envision a darker Riddler. Think the Zodiac killer, but a lot smarter. Each riddle has multiple levels. The obvious solution isn’t the right or only one. He wants people to be interested in his crimes and to try to work together to catch him – and ultimately to fail, because he’s so terribly smart and so much better than everyone else, in his mind.
Imagine Zodiac happening in the Internet age; tons of blogs, random people, lots of attention, holding the public in his sway with the glimmer of hope that a solution to end the reign of terror is only one more cryptogram away…
I don’t know how Nolan would do it, but I can offer this dynamic…
The Cobblepot lineage in Gotham is as storied and important as the Waynes. Billions of dollars and old money, philanthropy and numerous investments. Somewhere along the line it gets confiscated. Maybe through bad investments, being swindled, or maybe Oswald’s parents were involved in illegal activities and it came to light. (imagine his father as a Madoff type perhaps.) A young Oswald is left with a small inheritance which he is determined to build back up into to the fortune which he thinks is rightfully his. He starts a small nightclub, (The Iceberg Lounge), which becomes a hot spot for the chic’ and rich in Gotham. On the side he starts hiring muscle to move into the traditional organized crime venues that have been left decimated by the authorities, (Harvey, Gordon, and Dawes), and the new “freaks” in town, (Batman and the Joker).
Bruce gets wind of this activity through contacts and interrogations and decides to pay a visit face to face with the new/old player in Gotham. The first scene between the two could be fraught with tension… Bruce distrusts Oswald because he knows what he’s really up to and Oswald hates Bruce because he thinks he enjoyed a fate that should have been his.
Bruce: Oswald, it’s good to see you trying to rehabilitate your families name.
Oswald: Well we can’t all be born into money can we Wayne?
His ultimate plan? I don’t know. This is just what I came up with off the top of my head. In the last twenty years or so Penguin has been slowly turned into a ‘Don’ of Gotham so it seems a natural fit for him to move in that direction.
Re. The Riddler…
The complexity, or lack thereof, of the actual puzzles seems like a technical issue for the writers to grapple with. Ultimately I think the ‘Zodiac’ angle can work for the character, but his efficacy is going to depend on the ability for the audience to grasp the riddles without making them see too arcane.
In short, I agree with you on this one. If they choose to trot out Nigma it’s going to be a tightrope act, one I don’t envy the writers for having to walk.
The Mad Hatter…
Uh, FTR, I just want to state that I think the likelihood of the Hatter appearing at any point in the Nolan films is approaching nil… There’s no way of doing the character ‘straight’ without introducing the pedophile angle, which I don’t think can happen in a PG-13 film. It’s not even a trait that appears in DC’s mainstream Batman comics, it only shows up for specifically ‘mature’ rated books. Someone will probably correct me on this, but I can’t even recall off the top of my head anywhere it’s appeared aside from Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum GN from 1989. Fans however, (like myself), have latched on to it because it seems to make so much sense for the character’s basic premise. It works, and it gives the character an edge he doesn’t have otherwise.
Still, I don’t think there’s any real possibility of Tetch appearing in the movies.
Is the premise ridiculous? Yeah, but so are ‘microwave transmitters’ and a guy in white face paint holding a metropolitan city hostage with a few hundred bullets and some barrels of gasoline. Nolan’s movies are utterly ridiculous but we buy into them because they take themselves utterly seriously, which allows us to suspend our disbelief for the time being. It’s a lesson that perhaps Burton and Schumacher should have learned 20 years ago.
I like it. Criminal does viral ad campaign.
Where is this Nolanized list of characters? I’d love to see it.
I think this is the Nolanized graphic novel everyone refers to: Joker (graphic novel) - Wikipedia
Cool.
Although I wanted more pictures…
I originially really liked the idea of the Riddler, but I just don’t think it’s going to work in this universe. Besides some of the reasons listed upthread, Batman in this universe just isn’t really a great detective, a lot of that sort of work ends up falling on Fox and Alfred.
I really like the idea of Bane though, and I think he fits in as a natural progression of the story. I think the Venom works, if it’s dulled down a little bit, sort of like a slightly stronger version of steroids meets PCP. I would like to see him beaten in a way other than either cutting off or over-dosing on Venom because that just sort of seems like the way he always beats him.
He’s also going to need a new love interest, which is why I think most people are thinking Catwoman. I think she could work, but only if she’s very minor villain, so that the majority of her screentime would be between her and Bruce. That is, they have a very fast going sort of romance while Batman occassionally runs into her while she’s doing minor crimes, she’s just exceptionally agile (no particularly silly costume), but he just can’t catch her.
And while I would love to see Talia, I’m not sure how she would work. Most of the scenarios I envision require some form of retcon with the first movie because I think the most interesting part of their dynamic was how it involved her father.
There are rumors out today that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is on Nolan’s short list to play The Riddler in Batman 3.
Who knows if there’s any validity to this, but JGL is in Nolan’s upcoming Inception, and Nolan often works with the same actors more than once.