Rumor: Christian Bale will return as Batman in Justice League

The Justice League rumor mill has been working overtime for months now – for years, if you count George Miller’s thankfully-scrapped attempt to bring it to theaters – and with all the problems facing our country and planet, I can think of few things more important than the whens, hows, and whys of Superman broing down with Batman and Mighty Mouse. Last we heard, WB had sh*tcanned Will Beall’s script, which is probably a good thing. A. because it proves that someone actually read it (remember: no one ever reads anything in Hollywood), and B. because Will Beall last wrote Gangster Squad, a film which included the line “I miss that red snatch.”

Which brings us to today. LatinoReview, who have a pretty decent track record breaking comic book scoops, claim that Christopher Nolan, despite saying over and over and over again that producing Man of Steel would be his last involvement in superhero movies, has “taken over the DC Universe at Warner Bros.”

“Chris Nolan has completely taken over the DC Universe at Warner Bros. So anything having to do with these superheroes goes through him now. […] He’s going to be involved in Godfathering/producing the movie. While Zack Snyder is also going to be producing, and also, possibly, the director.”

And, according to their story, having Nolan involved, with Justice League happening before a Batman reboot, would mean in turn that Christian Bale would be back as Batman.

Latino Review’s sources tell them that Nolan is shaping Justice League as a team-up between Man of Steel star Henry Cavill and Christian Bale, reprising his role as Batman. As Latino Review’s El Mayimbe puts it, Superman will arrive and find Bruce Wayne somewhere in his peaceful retirement, tell him he’s putting a team together, and get all the new action started. [CinemaBlend]

Ooh, the old “I’m puttin’ a team together!” I hope it includes a “gettin’ dressed” montage a la Gordy Gekko in Wall Street 2, where Superman pulls on his big red boots and straightens his codpiece. Anyway, I don’t doubt LatinoReview’s scoop insomuch that I’m sure Warner wants all this to happen, it just seems like there are a lot of ifs and scheduling issues to work out. For one thing, this plan assumes that Man of Steel will be a billion-dollar franchise, which is certainly possible. But it didn’t quite work out that way with Superman Returns, and that came out when Bryan Singer was arguably a lot hotter than Zack Snyder is now. And Chris Nolan just seems too… British… to want to do another comic book movie. But hey, if JJ Abrams can direct both Star Trek and Star Wars, why can’t Chris Nolan handle every non-Marvel superhero movie? Eventually we’re just going to have six directors doing all the blockbusters.

Chris Nolan is certainly talented, and better than 95 percent of the alternatives. but his “gritty” approach to Batman started to annoy me about halfway through TDKR. His style seemed to get grittier even as the story stayed just as silly as any non-Nolan comic book movie. Maybe that effect won’t be as pronounced with him just producing? I don’t know. Look, I’m just excited to see Superman and Batman party down with Antman and Mothra and Silent Bob and the whole Justice League gang down at the Peach Pit. That Skeletor doesn’t stand a chance.

Debunkers Our track record with DC is impeccable. We broke Routh/Superman, Ledger/The Joker, the opening of The Dark Knight, etc., just to name a few. Remember, when we first broke that Goyer & Nolan were involved with Man Of Steel and Thomas Tull made a call over here to debunk us? So, um, how did that end up turning out? False? :) [LatinoReview]

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