i agree that this is inevitable. but as for the pre-production date of feb 09, i was really hoping to see him do a different film (the prisoner?) before we saw the 3rd chapter. 3-5 years would be perfect.

but then again, in nolan i trust...so whatever he decides to do will be great. maybe he's ready to attack the last part and move on in his career, so it's not looming over him for the next 5 years.

i agree with you. whilst i'm sure nolan will return, i doubt it will be going into pre-production in feb 2009.

you can't rush art
give him some time WB

Don't forget that the last big directorial announcement we read about from Production Weekly was Paul Greengrass doing Chicago 7. That turned out to be false.

he will prolly do a film before it like he did last time

2011 will be the new Batman. Nolan knows what he's doing. I bet they have an idea but not a story. and now they have to make a choice of weather to continue the Joker or a new story that will intertwine. They know they have to regroup and or rethink because heath was singed on for the next movie. The studio is working for Nolan now, its all up to him and that is a good thing.

Pre-Production in February? Isn't that a little early considering a script most likely hasn't even been written yet? Maybe they mean writing will start around then. I'm going to take this info with a grain of salt.

I don't buy that it's a Batman film. Wouldn't be surprised if it was one of his between-Batman-gems.

Hasn't this rumor already been debunked? Nolan hasn't signed on for a third installment yet (although I don't doubt that he will), and pre-production is not slated for February 2009.

Foolish.

We don't need Spiderman 3.

Give Nolan some time off. Let him to do the film when he wants.

Granted Spiderman 3 had time between Spiderman 2 (3 years) but yeah dont rush this. He said he was taking 5 months off starting from July but I dont know if he'll dip right into the 3rd film especially when the bar has been set so high and its going to be difficult topping the Joker/Ledger hysteria that resulted in box office sales.

If he returns (which I think he will once the money truck is backed up to his house) he may want to get his third and final Batman movie out of the way so he can move on...just a thought. Pre-production in only a few months is a little iffy but wouldn't shock me to see it start by early summer. Still think it will be Feb-Mar of 2010 before the real pre-produciton starts

Maybe this one will be 4 hours long? Yuck ... Also having to sit through Bale doing that Batman voice for 6 hours. No good.

/knight strikes again

seriously this site has enough batman hysteria as it is, but i will give this site this. it has been a while since we had a batman story.

anyways i say give nolan as much time as he needs. i'll probably expect this to come out in 2011 and it will gross no where near the dark knight in box office

what the fuck ever man. I guess the third won't be good.

There should be a sign around this man that says "Please Do Not Poke or Bother the Nolan. He May Eat Your Batmans."

he'll be back

it would be cool to see the third one set in the winter. Chicago has some wicked winters that would look cool

lol @ TheMarquis

I'm not so sure they absolutely need nolan himself back. It's batman that people are coming to see, though the dark knight was more the Joker Magic Pencil Party than Batman's movie... they still go to see bats and if they continue down the dark and serious route I see no reason why more wouldn't flock to see another batman flick. Nolan or nonoonolanoanon....blah.

hope he can milk some money out of them for another Memento/Prestige type movie.

thinking the movie doesn't need Nolan is absolutely stupid.

RobertN,

That's what I want. He needs a break before going back into Batman. And anyone who thinks Nolan isn't needed are kidding themselves. It took Nolan to make me realize just how much was missing from other Batman films to begin with.

This guy single-handidly revived the comicbook film movement too. His film is referenced either in terms of what he's done for the character or wanting to do-over their own films.

I know I wanted a nother film after the epic TDK. I just think it now has to come back full circle back to Batman himself. Which when you look at the themes, is how I see it.

Chris Nolan is my hero. he has earned the right to do what ever he wants. whether its Batman 3 or something original. no matter what his next project is, i will be there on opening day

@ Captain Awesome

he did not revive the comicbook film movement. thats complete bull. sure the dark knight was the best of the superhero films this summer, but you are forgetting that iron man, the incredible hulk, and hellboy 2 were all released and well received.

by the way, i know i'm in the minority here, but i thought that iron man was better than the dark knight. i loved both films, but i just thought that iron man was a much more enjoyable film because the dark knight had the depressing tone too it.

Ok, so isn't it entirely possible that he could be prepping to shoot, The Prisoner. Him and nathan could be off working right now on it, while we think he is on vacation. Say if I knew that for sure, well then that would be a scoop.

I hope you guys realize pre-production phase is a long one. Not sure if it was posted here, but even getting locations to film 16 months ahead of time is considered pre-production work. I expect Nolan to make a film in between now and 2010, start filming in summer to fall of 2010, and make another release in the summer 2011.

Matt,

I'm speaking what he did when he introduced Batman Begins onto the scene. We had Spider-Man before that, and some other comic films here and there like The Crow, The Rocketeer, Dick Tracy, and so on. But Nolan brought more of a natural grounding and excellent backstory with his take on the character.

I had to deal with Burton mudding-up the backstory by making the Joker kill his parents, which I never liked. I liked Iron-Man. But Nolan gives me more "meat" with his Batman films.

We all hope that Nolan returns BUT if he doesn't I'd understand

I don't see how nolan can top TDK but I just hope with the next film it will be about Batman . Explore more of him in the Batcave as a fugitive and hearing the news about the villains and fighting crime while not getting caught.Him trying to come up with strategy to defeat his nemesis. I think in TDK we never got the chance to see how his mind works and his strong sense of justice cause it was so much going on.

Introduce Dr. Hugo Strange in Arkham asylum taking over the position that Jonathan Crane in Begins as the pschologist and have him talking to "minor" Batman Villains like "scarface" trying to psycho analyze him (in the comics dr. Hugo Strange discovered Batman was bruce wayne through his intellect). I kind of think since ppl know this might be Nolan's last Batfilm they want "everything " in there but in my opinion those are some of the villians I would like to see NOT as major villains just in passing or something . Top Villains
The penguin, The Riddler or Black mask or why not all 3 damnit! There was 3 villains in Batman Begins and TDK just gotta connect them all to the same story

So we still know nothing. I don't think that news worth.

detective comic,

It's not about topping TDK. It's what he does in the next film. I agree with you that I see the third film being all about Bruce and his identity as Batman. Which I think is what we will get, and I'd be all for it.

@Matt

I also loved both films (TDK more, maybe because im a batman fan more) but giving the reason that a movie have a depresing tone cant be the only reason, just because i found Superbad funny and Requiem for a Dream (IMO is better than Superbad) more depresing doesnt make Superbad better.

WTF with people now, they think Nolan cant pull a ROTK in the third, i trust nolan and im sure he will not screw the 3rd film.

"they think Nolan cant pull a ROTK in the third"

:eye roll:

I agree with you, but the ROTK was filmed at the same time as all the other ones. That's why it is of the same quality level. There would be no reason for a drop-off if it was filmed all as one piece.

Spider-man 3 didn't have that luxury. And something was "lost" in the time off. Batman's situation would be closer to SM3 than ROTK.

The problem with Spider-man 3 is that the studio forced Raimi into things (Venom) and that clearly didn't work out. Part of the problem, I think, is that SM2 grossed less than SM1. So they took more control and look what happened to SM3, it grossed less than SM2. Now with the ROTK argument, yes it was filmed at the same time. However, there is one important difference between ROTK and SM3-studio control. Jackson got to do what he wanted with his films, Raimi not so much. With the huge increase in box office over Batman Begins I highly doubt Warner Brothers will be stupid enough to try and take control.

Batman 3, the " Dark Victory "...will be Nolan's last Batman flick and it will be the best in the series in my opinion, The Joker story was amazing and Heath nailed it and so did Eckhart, Nolans did their Long Halloween story, they gotta do Dark Victory, its logical, eliminate Two Face for The Black Mask, Jaoquin Pheonix as The Joker ( no marketing for character ). Batman battling a serial killer type villain, The Joker with his master plan in the backround, the final villain being The Black Mask, with The Riddler maybe in there was a reporter side character set up for the next movie, Catwoman as Bruces love interest, Bruce is accidentally responsible for her turn as Catwoman and she dies as a result, the f*kking Joker gets her...This movie has already surpassed TDK in the box office as far as WBs concerned.

its so funny to see people do their 'paragraph-pitches' here, on what the plot for the next film should be. i have yet to read a good one, and i think the only way we ever will is if goyer or jonah nolan start posting on /film...which would be dope.

PlantPage55,

The problem with Spider-Man 3 is that it was directed by Sam Raimi and co-written by his brother . Nolan already has one over on Sam in the director and story category. And Nolan's brother actually knows how to "write".

@ orange cinema Ledger and Nolan were the stars of the movie. The script was "good" but not "great" it was ledger's performance and Chris Nolan's vision that were the stars. Harvey's story line was kind of weak and it's a shame scarecrow was reduced to a small cameo. They coulda done other things with him.

AJ i don't think Venom was the problem Spider-Man 3 had. It was emo Mary Jane and dancing Pete. Don't tell me the studios forced him to do this. This film was a complete failure.

@ youngze It was not the dancing or the " emo Mary Jane" that made spiderman 3 wack......It was the story. I mean the scene where Topher grace turns into venom in the cathedral and the scene where the sandman transforms in some random miltary base escaping jail or whatever was just kind of cliche and familiar that's all. The pacing of the movie was off so you really couldn't get into it. The scene where the venom symbiote comes to earth was just "hammy". They coulda made the scene intense and made the symbiote venom an "event" and threatening but the didn't If they had just nipped and tucked little scenes like those I think it would have been much better.

You people seem to be so interested in what the movie studio is doing and not interested in the "story". To hell with what actors gonna play who and how well they did and box office......Make a good compelling story that moves ppl and let nature take it's course!

You gotta see it from a filmmaker's perspective!

Why let someone else come in and ruin your trilogy - AND THERE WILL BE A TRILOGY NO DOUBT ABOUT THAT!

Nolan has the task of succeeding where most filmmaker's fail in getting a good third movie in!

Only Peter Jackson can really hold claim to that - and I still think Two Towers was better than Return of the King!

We will see but I hope his ego gets the better of him and he gives us a brilliant trilogy!