Out of nowhere, it has been officially announced that rising star Anne Hathaway (pictured above in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland) has been cast as Catwoman in Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. Over time, many have argued that attempting Catwoman in Nolan’s Bat-verse would be a mistake, though it should hardly be expected that Nolan would take notice of online negativity, given his confident approach to the series so far.
After an initial shock, I think it will be interesting to see how Nolan forms this character, and also what Hathaway (a good actress) can do with her. People far and wide will be putting the memory of Halle Berry’s Catwoman out of their minds (if, for some reason, they had not done so already) and crossing their fingers for this.
Tom Hardy (who collaborated with Nolan on Inception) has also been cast as a villain, Bane. If anything, this character choice is more left field and unexpected than Catwoman, but again isn’t unwelcome. The last film portrayal of Bane came in 1997’s diabolical Batman and Robin, so at least it can’t get any worse than what’s come before. Interesting news for sure; cue an internet furore about potential continuations of the story.