Over here at the Official The Mary Sue The Dark Knight Rises Breaking Newsometer and Speculate-erator (TM), we’ve been waiting expectantly on the confirmation of another villain for TDRK. Sure, the movie is pretty much cast and has even started filming in India and London, but so far there are only two confirmed big-name villains that appear in it, and for a Christopher Nolan Batman film, that is clearly waaay too few, especially when Catwoman has never been so much a villain as a wildcard. The Dark Knight had four recognizable villain names on its cast (Joker, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Sal Maroni) and Begins had six (Henri Ducard, Scarecrow, Carmine Falcone, Ra’s al Ghul, Joe Chill, and Victor Zsasz).
And, as we expected, here’s our first bit of news to support this (entirely scientifically accurate and rigorous) statistical history of Nolan Batman movies: Matthew Modine, who has been cast as a character named Nixon, is “a politician and a key villain,” at least according to Showbiz 411.
The Batman mythos has no shortage of canonical corrupt politicians that a movie could draw upon, since there’s rarely a moment when the mayor of Gotham isn’t some jerk hamstringing the police force, lining his pockets with graft, or ill-advisedly trying to use costumed villains as a tourist attraction.
In fact, if this guy is a corrupt politician and hires Bane to come in and get rid of Batman, we’d basically have the plot of Bane’s original appearance in Batman: The Animated Series, but since we’re also definitely dealing with Lazarus pits in TDKR, that’s not something I think is likely, just something that my brain stuffed with Batman plots barfed up. There’s still quite a bit of TDKR plot that we’re in the dark on. One doesn’t hire Joseph Gordon-Levitt just to play a beat cop, or Marion Cotillard to play a random Wayne Enterprises employee. (If Cotillard turns out to be Talia Head I won’t be surprised, but I will be very happy).
In other news that is probably only funny to Batman fans from the Tri-State area, Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, says that his city is being scouted for locations to film TDKR in, and that “he suggested that he star as Nightwing” but “executives smiled politely and looked at their watches.”
Which is hilarious, because I always assumed that if New York City was Gotham, than Nightwing’s homebase Blüdhaven was Newark: a smaller city with all the same problems but none of the style, just a quick ride away by car, public transit, plane, or Batboat. We totally understand why the execs turned him down, though. Booker doesn’t have nearly enough hair.
(via io9.)
