Christopher Nolan’s conclusion to his reinvented Batman trilogy is now officially called The Dark Knight Rises, and will follow on from the open ending to the second film.
Aside from the title which, while being decent enough, is hardly exciting news, Nolan has also revealed a couple of interesting pieces of info. Firstly, and to our eternal relief, the third film will not be shot in 3D. Nolan prefers to push iMax to the limits and all credit to him for that. If the franchise wasn’t so massive already he could perhaps have been forced to shoot in 3D, but thanks to the success of The Dark Knight in particular (and probably Inception too) he has been able to keep the series firmly in his hands.
Secondly, the villain will not (as has been rumoured recently) be The Riddler. Various actors were already being shoehorned into the role by all and sundry on the web (with Joseph Gordon-Levitt apparently favourite) but Nolan has now confirmed otherwise. Frankly, this sounds like a good decision, because The Riddler might have seemed a little too close to The Joker. Who the villain or villains will be we’ll have to wait for find out. At least we know that, if they choose Catwoman, they can’t do any worse than the Halle Berry version. We hope.