You'll have to put this one down as speculation, but very, very, very tasty speculation.
According to Michael Caine, who plays Alfred in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Johnny Depp will play The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman will play The Penguin in the next outing of the Batman franchise.
Yeah, we know, we thought nothing would top Ledger's appearance as The Joker, but this revelation fills us with optimism.
The news comes from an MTV interview with Caine at the Toronto Film Festival. Looking back at the hugely-popular Dark Knight, Caine reflects on how he thought nobody could top Jack Nicholson's Joker, other than maybe Heath. More importantly, and looking forward, Caine then adds:
I was with (a Warner Bros.) executive and I said, "Are we going to make (a sequel to The Dark Knight)?" They said yeah. I said, "How the hell are we going to top Heath?" And he says "I’ll tell you how you top Heath - Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin." I said, "Shit, they’ve done it again!"
Now, we've no reason to doubt our beloved grey-haired Alfred, but it should be noted that Depp recently denied rumours suggesting that he'd already been cast as The Riddler.
Furthermore, director Christopher Nolan is on vacation and hasn't yet confirmed his sure-to-happen third Batman movie. Even if Warner Bros. want Depp and Hoffman involved in the next Batman outing, Nolan may not agree. Nonetheless, we're licking our lips already.
How do you feel about the prospect of Depp as The Riddler and Hoffman as The Pengiun? Are these the villains you'd like to see, or did you have something else in mind? Share your thoughts in the HEXUS.community forums.
