It’s Cher who we feel most sorry for, of course. We thought that Cher had the Batman 3 Catwoman role all sewn up.

But, no, Megan Fox had to waltz in and snatch it from her. Damn you, Megan Fox. What’s your Catwoman going to like, huh? All young and sexy, probably. Well that’s not good enough – we wanted Batman 3 to feature a doddery 63-year-old Catwoman dressed in a vicar’s doily who’d been scientifically reconstructed from scraps of medical waste. And now you’ve spoilt it, Megan Fox. Because you’re the new Catwoman, aren’t you?

Aren’t you? What’s that? Probably not? Oh.

With filming set to begin on Batman 3 next year, speculation has never been so rife. How many subordinates will Christian Bale bellow at during the filming? Which promising young star will die right before the movie’s release? If Christian Bale gives Batman that silly voice again for a third film, how far into the movie will it be before his larynx shears in half like a rusty pipe? We must know!

But at least we know who’s going to play Catwoman in Batman 3 now. It’s our dear friend Megan Fox, who’s presumably been chosen over Cher because Christopher Nolan didn’t want a Catwoman who looks as if chronic osteoporosis would hamper her whip skills, and chosen over Angelina Jolie because she’s about 40 times cheaper.

Except, well, don’t get your hopes up. Megan Fox hasn’t officially been signed to play Catwoman in Batman 3, and that’s probably for the following reasons:

1 - If Megan Fox starred in Batman 3, then Catwoman would be 12 years younger than Batman. Therefore, the sexual relationship between Batman and Catwoman would be replaced by scenes where Batman takes Catwoman to play on the swings and washes her by spitting into a tissue and then rubbing it all over her face.

2 – Megan Fox recently slagged off her latest Transformers movie, so big action franchise producers will be weary about working with her.

3 - This is plainly a lot of bollocks from Megan Fox’s camp because she wants to play Catwoman instead of Rachel Weisz, who is currently the favourite to get the role.

But let’s play along for a bit anyway. Hey The Sun, why would Megan Fox make a good Catwoman?

The Transformers stunner follows in the pawprints of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry. But Megan, who has a slightly darker edge than her two predecessors, will be brilliant as Selina Kyle.

Oh, it’s because Megan Fox has a dark edge. That makes sense. We can see it now. Batman 3 will be about Catwoman – who turned to crime after realising that she wasn’t very good at acting – holding Gotham City to ransom by doing some acting for them, paralysing the population with the impossible choice of telling her that she’s not a very good actress and letting her carry on thinking that she’s a good actress just because she’s quite pretty.

And we just thought that this was news because it happens to be Bring Your Horny Teenage Son To Work Day at The Sun. Shows what we know, eh?

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But the thing about Batman 3 is, it doesn’t exist. It hasn’t been cast, it hasn’t got a director and nobody’s even bothered to design any bat-nipples yet, a legal requirement of any third Batman movie.

But there is a Batman 3 script. The internet is abuzz after an eight-page Batman 3 script – apparently by Christopher Nolan and his brother – mysteriously appeared this week. The bad news? It’s horrible. The good news? We’ll shave our balls on the internet if it’s genuine.

You probably thought that all the Batman 3 rumours would die down after The Dark Knight got so royally shafted at the Oscars, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. Even though Christopher Nolan hasn’t even agreed to direct Batman 3 yet, a script for a film named Batman Crusader bearing his name has popped up on all kinds of websites over the last couple of days.

You can read the whole Batman 3 script over at Cinemablend if you like, but the thrust of it seems to be that Batman is in a building and the police have got him surrounded and The Riddler is a police consultant and at one point one of the policemen says “Are you suggesting that Gotham’s finest isn’t up to the job of catching the Batman?” at which point you will become so embarrassed for the script that you’ll try to chew your own fist off.

So the Batman 3 script is a fake – it’s obviously a fake because The Riddler is described as ‘intelligent’ when we all know that he’s either going to be dressed as a sailor or a black man in a female fat suit who isn’t as funny as he used to be.

But then again, it’s obviously not a work of fan fiction either – something we’ve been able to deduce by the shocking lack of interminable scenes where Batman graphically gives Commissioner Gordon a ribjob while Alfred the butler stands and watches, naked from the waist down and playing I Want Your Sex by George Michael on a medieval lute. Which, it goes without saying, would be a mainstay of any Batman 3-related work of fan fiction we wrote.

Then again, Batman Crusader is such an obviously made-up name – The Dark Knight proved that Batman movies get more successful the less their titles actually refer to Batman, which is why Batman 3 will either be called The Shadowy Conquistador, The Gloomy Ninja or Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction – that it can’t be anything other than completely, hopelessly fake.

Plus there was nothing about Cher being Catwoman in it. That was the dealbreaker.

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The bad news is that Batman 3 director Christopher Nolan appears to have banged his head quite hard on a doorframe and is badly concussed. We’ve deduced this thanks to reports that Nolan has signed Eddie Murphy to play The Riddler in Batman 3. Eddie bloody Murphy.

But it’s not all bad, because it’s not as if he’s also signed Shia LaBeouf to play Robin in Batman 3 as well, is it? It is? Christopher Nolan, you great big sod, what have you done?

Casting Batman 3 was always going to pose a problem for Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight was such a massive success that the logical thing to do would be to bring back the same villains for the sequel. The problem with that plan, though, is that one of the baddies died onscreen and the other one died in real life.

So all Christopher Nolan had to start Batman 3 with was Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and a man with a stupid voice being chased by some dogs like a great big morally-ambiguous sausage. And that’s how the great Batman 3 casting rumours started. Several names were all thrown into the pot, but none of them stuck. Here’s why:

Angelina Jolie as Catwoman – Would have contractually requested a sequence where Batman goes to Darfur and weeps for 30 minutes.

Johnny Depp as The Riddler – Will Batman 3 be a) directed by Tim Burton or b) an impenetrable kid’s film? No? Well there’s your answer.

Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin – Philip Seymour Hoffman in a popular film? Whatever next?

Cher as Catwoman – Not even Christopher Nolan wants audiences to leave the cinema covered in vomit and eye-blood because they’ve seen Cher’s latex-covered vulva in close-up on an Imax screen.

Actually, the real reason none of the above were cast for Batman 3 is simple – it’s because Christopher Nolan had a secret wishlist that was far, far shittier. How shit? Shia LaBeouf shit. Eddie Murphy shit. The Sun reports:

Funnyman Eddie Murphy will play The Riddler in the next Batman movie, The Sun can reveal. The Beverly Hills Cop star, 47, has been signed up by British director Christopher Nolan. Execs have also signed up rising Transformers star Shia LaBeouf, 22, to play Robin. Meanwhile, Brit Rachel Weisz is said to be up for the Catwoman role.

Now, OK, we can see Rachel Weisz as Catwoman in Batman 3, because she’s very clearly lovely. But didn’t Christian Bale say that he’d be ‘chaining himself up and refusing to work‘ if Robin appeared in the sequel to The Dark Knight? And Eddie Murphy? Eddie Murphy? Eddie titting Murphy?

Obviously The Sun’s report should be taken with a pinch of salt at the moment, partly because nothing has been officially confirmed and partly because Eddie Murphy was referred to with the prefix ‘funnyman’ as opposed to the technically more accurate ‘woefully unfunny dickmunch’. But still, what if the rumours are true?

If Eddie Murphy really is going to be The Riddler in Batman 3, then we’ve whittled down the movie’s storyline to three possible options:

1 – Batman 3 won’t just feature The Riddler played by Eddie Murphy, but also The Riddler’s mother, father, obese girlfriend and racist stereotypical Chinaman neighbour, all also played by Eddie Murphy.

2 - Batman 3 will be about Batman chasing The Riddler to take a DNA test because he knocked up a Spice Girl and denied the baby was his. The movie ends with Batman catching The Riddler in a honeytrap sting involve a transvestite prostitute.

3 - In Batman 3 everyone sits around puzzled by the fact that they’ve actually become slightly nostalgic for Jim Carrey, something none of them thought they would ever do.

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But most of all, the world wants Christopher Nolan. But since this is Christopher Nolan – a man who once made an entire film about Al Pacino being quite sleepy – he isn’t making the Batman 3 talk easy.

Promoting The Dark Knight’s DVD release, Nolan reiterated that the pressure of following such a huge movie might cause him to foul the sequel up. Well, Christopher, that didn’t stop Sam Raimi from making Spider-Man 3, and that was… um, OK, let’s move on.

Although there’s obviously a lot of talk about Heath Ledger at the moment – most notably how his indelible interpretation of The Joker could easily win an Oscar next year – The Dark Knight really only created one star.

No, not Aaron Eckhart – all he did model his face on Posh Spice and do a rubbish Skeletor voice. And not Morgan Freeman, either – regardless of whether he’s playing a technological wizard or a retired child kidnapper he can still only really play Morgan Freeman. And we refuse to take Christian Bale seriously as Batman until someone gives him a bloody Strepsil.

No, the real star of The Dark Knight was Christopher Nolan – not only did he manage to make a superhero movie into a dark, rich, morally ambiguous thriller with a completely noncommercial ending, but he managed to make it more popular than any movie ever barring Titanic. And that takes some doing.

So, while some people are caught up in the trivialities of whether Johnny Depp will play The Riddler in Batman 3 – or whether Cher will play Catwoman – the real question is whether Christopher Nolan wants to direct it or not.

So far Nolan has been fiercely coy on the matter, noting that he hasn’t been signed up to direct Batman 3 and that he didn’t want to go down the traditional route of third superhero movies and write a script that sees the hero turn evil because either a) Richard Pryor accidentally turned a woman into a robot or b) he got sad because Kirsten Dunst danced and cooked eggs at the same time, depending on whether you’ve just watched Superman III or Spider-Man 3.

But that was a few months ago – surely Christopher Nolan has changed his mind about Batman 3 by now! Surely! Surely, USA Today? You know! Tell us what he said, USA Today:

“I wouldn’t want to do one if it weren’t going to be as good as the first or second. That’s not respectful to the fans… It was obvious when the box office was so big that we had underestimated how ready fans were to reboot the franchise. The worst thing you could do now that you’ve gotten the plane back in the air is mess up the landing.”

Oh, you big bloody cocktease, Nolan. You know as well as anyone that The Dark Knight was such a huge success that Batman 3 is going to happen regardless of whether you make Batman 3 and follow the series through to the graceful, elegant conclusion you’ve envisioned for it or whether Warner Brothers gets Schumacher back onboard to give everyone giant nylon codpieces and a script that’s 98% pun. Which one would you prefer?

We can see right through Christopher Nolan’s little plan here. The more he appears to wring his hands about Batman 3, the more people like us will clamour for him to make it. And then, when Christoper Nolan ends up making Batman 3 into a gigantic dogturd that climaxes with Christian Bale kissing Cher with tongues inside a helicopter flying away from a burning building, he can look back and say that it was all our fault. Which it will be. Arse.

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True, there isn’t a script for Batman 3 yet, Christopher Nolan hasn’t even admitted that he wants to make a Batman 3 three yet and for all we know the movie’s going to be about Crazy Quilt or Mr Polka Dot instead of The Penguin. But, that said, Phillip Seymour Hoffman is definitely going to play The Penguin in Batman 3.

Except Phillip Seymour Hoffman doesn’t really think that’s going to happen. In a recent interview Hoffman claimed that he doesn’t think he’d be a good Penguin and that someone else should probably do it instead. Which, we think, is a coded message to say that he thinks he’d be a brilliant Penguin in Batman 3 and that he definitely wants to do it. Tell your friends. It’s official!

Even though The Dark Knight is second only to Titanic in terms of box office grosses, you wouldn’t want to be invited to play a Batman villain in its sequel, would you. Just look what the horrific curse of Batman has done to the acting community already.

Heath Ledger, obviously, played The Joker in The Dark Knight and wound up dead, but that’s not all. Cesar Romero played The Joker in the 1960s Batman TV series and he died just 24 years afterwards at the tragically young age of 86. Worse still, Jack Nicholson played The Joker in the 1989 Tim Burton Batman movie and he’s ended up being quite old.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman knows this only too well, and the last thing he wants to do is be dead or old one day, which is why he’s doing his best to distance himself from rumours linking him to the role of The Penguin in Batman 3.

Ever since The Dark Knight was released, there have been three main rumours about Batman 3 – 1) Johnny Depp would be the Riddler, 2) Cher would be Catwoman and 3) Phillip Seymour Hoffman would be The Penguin.

Given that nobody – not even, it seems, Christopher Nolan – knows what’s going to even happen in Batman 3 yet, these rumours have seemed unlikely at best or, in Cher’s case, freakish and somewhat libido-dulling. And, just to make that perfectly clear, Phillip Seymour Hoffman has finally weighed in on the possibility of playing The Penguin, as Digital Spy reports:

“To be quite honest, I don’t know whether I would be a good Penguin. I think I’m more interested in seeing someone else do it.”

Now, Hollywood is a funny place, so we’re taking Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s statement as meaning one of three things:

1 - Phillip Seymour Hoffman knows that he’s a favourite for The Penguin in Batman 3 and he’s distancing himself deliberately so that producers ramp up their fee to lure him in.

2 - Phillip Seymour Hoffman genuinely doesn’t want to be The Penguin because he’d much rather make thematically-impenetrable Charlie Kaufman movies for the rest of his life.

3 - Phillip Seymour Hoffman is definitely definitely going to play The Penguin in Batman 3. Definitely.

Oh, who are we kidding? It’s the last one, isn’t it.

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It’s common knowledge that Christopher Nolan hasn’t signed on to direct Batman 3 yet, but now we’re starting to hear whispers that he’s probably never going to make Batman 3, probably because he wants to make loads more weird little films about David Bowie inventing electricity or something.

This rumour that Batman 3 will be directed by someone other than Christopher Nolan is actually quite worrying – not only because his work on The Dark Knight took intelligent popcorn hits to a dramatic new level, but also because he apparently wanted Cher to play Catwoman, and who wouldn’t want to see a big-haired pensioner wriggling around in a skin-tight latex leotard, right? Right? Hello? Anyone?

Everyone knows The Dark Knight was good. It was so good that it made Christian Bale go mental on his mum. It was so good that it made Morgan Freeman crash his car with an illicit ladyfriend in the passenger seat. It was even so good that we’re prepared to overlook Batman’s silly voice and that nonsense about tracking people’s mobile phones in it.

It was, in short, so good that everyone is desperate for Batman 3. We’d even be able to put up with a Batman 3 that starred Cher and Johnny Depp so long as Christopher Nolan directed it. Make no mistake – Christopher Nolan is vital to Batman 3.

Which is why it’s a pain in the arse that he’s probably not going to direct it. During his big interview about Two-Face being dead recently, Aaron Eckhart also happened to let out this little nugget of information:

“He never said he’s going to make another one. I’m sure they drove the Brinks truck up to his house and dumped money on his lawn. But I think Chris wants to go out and make other movies, too. And he should. He’s an independent filmmaker at heart. He’s got a lot of ideas.”

The News Of The World, which never makes stuff like this up, expanded on the claim yesterday by suggesting that Christopher Nolan won’t make Batman 3 because he can’t do it without Heath Ledger. But that’s rubbish – he swapped Katie Holmes for Maggie Gyllenhaal between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and that formula worked pretty well, so all he needs to do is find a new Joker with a weirder-looking face and he’ll be away.

Of course, with The Dark Knight being the massive runaway success that it is, Batman 3 is an inevitability whether or not Christopher Nolan chooses to direct it. But if he doesn’t, we’d personally like to vouch for Tyler Perry. It sounds like a weird choice, but it’s the only way that our dream of seeing a tall, overweight transvestite Batman dishing out folksy self-help soundbites to criminals will be realised. Who’s with us?

But hold your horses, buster. Aaron Eckhart isn’t going to be in Batman 3. That might sound like common sense, seeing as how his character Two-Face stacked it to death off a building at the end of The Dark Knight, but apparently a handful of internet ninnies have decided that Two-Face didn’t die at all, and that both he and his silly voice will return for Batman 3.

And that’s why Aaron Eckhart has come forward to declare once and for all that Two-Face is definitely 100% dead. But don’t worry, disappointed Aaron Eckhart fans – he might not be returning for Batman 3, but copies of his 2007 Catherine Zeta Jones cookery-based romantic comedy No Reservations are still available to buy or rent on DVD. Yes, we thought that’d please you.

This whole Batman 3 malarkey is getting a bit out of hand, isn’t it. Because The Dark Knight has taken over half a billion dollars since it was released, everyone’s got so desperate for news about the sequel that they’ll believe any old crap that’s hurled at them.

But in reality, not much is known about Batman 3 at all. The only concrete Batman 3 facts are as follows:

1) Catwoman and The Penguin definitely won’t be appearing in Batman 3.

2) Despite this, Catwoman will definitely be played by Angelina Jolie.

3) In addition, Cher will also definitely be Batman 3’s Catwoman.

4) Johnny Depp. Definitely.

And they’re literally all the stone-cold facts we can tell you about Batman 3. All of them are unequivocally true. As is the news that Two-Face died in The Dark Knight and definitely won’t be returning for a sequel. No, really.

Seriously, Aaron Eckhart can’t make that clear enough. You know that bit at the end of The Dark Knight where Two-Face and Batman fall out of a window and everyone’s all like “Oh, Two-Face is dead” and Batman has to run off because there’s a dog chasing him or something? Yeah, despite what the corner of the internet that smells most like Clearasil and stale jism says, he is actually dead. Even Aaron Eckhart says so. Eckhart told Comingsoon:

“He is dead as a door nail. He ain’t coming back baby! I asked Chris [Nolan] that question and he goes, “You’re dead” before I could even get the question out of my mouth. “Hey Chris, am I?” “You’re dead!” Alright, cool.”

So that’s that – Two-Face is definitely dead, definitely not coming back and that definitely means that in Batman 3 Christian Bale will have to find someone new to growl incoherently at.

To take stock, then – Aaron Eckhart won’t return for Batman 3 because his character’s dead and Heath Ledger won’t return because he’s actually dead. Cuh, some people will do anything to make sure they don’t get a crappy, pointless, totally unexplained Cillian Murphy-style cameo at the start of the next film, won’t they.

That’s a stone cold fact. You heard it here first. Why are we so sure that Johnny Depp will play The Riddler in Batman 3? Because Johnny Depp recently briefly mumbled something desperately ambiguous about it possibly being quite fun to maybe play The Riddler during a local radio interview with his band.

See? That’s means Johnny Depp is definitely going to be The Riddler in Batman 3, which is why we’ve already started to manufacture a set of Johnny Depp Batman 3 Riddler action figures. OK, admittedly we just got a load of unsold Pirates Of The Caribbean action figures and Tippexed question marks onto their backs but – face it – that’s probably what he’ll be like in the film anyway.

We know this is a bit premature, but we’re absolutely confident that Batman 3 is going to be the best film ever made. Seriously, ever.

Look at how Dark Knight ended, with Batman living in fear as a supposed criminal vigilante. Batman 3 is going to have the same feeling of doomy paranoia and creeping dread, but it’ll also have Cher titting around in a rubber doily too. There’s something for everyone there, provided that you’re a manic depressive comicbook fan or a stereotypical homosexual.

But what if you want more from The Dark Knight’s sequel than a fed-up Batman and a terrifyingly expressionless pensionable Catwoman who keeps getting her old lady minge out? What if, for instance, you want to see The Riddler in Batman 3?

Well, frankly, if that’s the case you’re an idiot. The Riddler is rubbish. He’s basically The Joker but with a green hat and a thing for Sudoku. He’s Henry Kelly from Going For Gold with a bee in his bonnet. He’s rubbish. Don’t argue, we’re right. He’s rubbish.

But none of that fierce logic is washing with Christopher Nolan. It’s long been rumoured that he’d like to cast Johnny Depp as The Riddler in Batman 3. So far Johnny Depp has kept quiet over the reports, but during a local radio interview recently, he decided to share his thoughts on the matter:

Host: Hey Johnny, a listener called in earlier said you have to ask about the rumors on the internet of you doing the Riddler.
Depp: Oh yeah, I heard about that. Not that I know of.
Host: You’d be a good choice.
Depp: It seems like it’d be a fun gig for a while, yeah.

“It seems like it’d be a fun gig for a while, yeah.” If that’s not official confirmation of the casting, we don’t know what is. But you know what this means?

It’s obvious. Cher as Catwoman and Sweeney Todd’s Johnny Depp as The Riddler? Batman 3 is going to be a musical!

That’s excellent news, and we’d like to take this opportunity to offer Christopher Nolan our specially-composed pieces I’m Just A Lonely Millionaire With A Creepy Bat Fixation, Butla Rapp and Don’t Kiss Me Catwoman (You Have A Moustache Like My Gran). Don’t be stealing our ideas, Nolan.

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But that’s potentially going to change with the release of Batman 3, or whatever the sequel to The Dark Knight is going to be called. That’s because, according to The Mirror, Christopher Nolan’s first choice to play Catwoman is none other than 62-year-old surgically modified warbler Cher.

Phew, and to think that Angelina Jolie was almost Catwoman, too. That would have just been sick.

We’re in a brave new world here, people. The Dark Knight isn’t just not the top movie at the box office any more, it isn’t also not the best movie ever made any more according to recent statistics. And, whisper it, but The Dark Knight is also isn’t not the movie that isn’t not going to won’t beat Titanic to the all-time top-grossing movie title. We think. We may have got a little confused back there.

Anyway, our point is this – now that we’re living in a world where The Dark Knight hype is starting to wilt, it should be time that Batman 3 hype got a kick up the old wazoo. But first, let’s see where we stand with Batman 3 hype at the moment.

It’s a concrete, rock-solid, set in stone fact that neither The Penguin or Catwoman will be appearing in Batman 3, just as it’s scientifically unequivocal that Catwoman will be in Batman 3 and played by Angelina Jolie. But now a new report is suggesting that Catwoman will be in Batman 3 and played by Cher. And, since it’s the most recent, we’re more inclined to believe it. The Mirror reports:

Cher has been lined up to play Catwoman in the next Batman movie. Cher, 62, was invited to join a cast which includes Johnny Depp as The Riddler. A studio executive revealed: “Cher is Nolan’s first choice to play Catwoman. He wants her to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years. The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry’s purring creations.”

Actually, once you’ve got over the shock of Cher as Catwoman – and brace yourself, it’ll probably take up to six or seven hours for the news to sink in and the terror-sweats to stop – it actually makes a twisted amount of sense. After all, Cher and Catwoman are incredibly similar. Look…

1) They both have a terrible dress sense.

2) They both have problem hair.

3) They’re both gay icons.

4) Both of them believe in life after love.

5) Catwoman once had a ginger son with a face like a club foot, exactly like Cher did in the film Mask.

Spooky, huh? So, on the whole, we’re generally convinced that Cher being Catwoman is a perfectly good idea, although news of an older Catwoman has kind of given the game away that Batman 3 will revolve around the theme of vaginal prolapse. Oh well, we’ll get over it.

The sequel to the Best Film Ever(tm) that has made more money than the GDP of many African nations combined, The Dark Knight, will get a sequel at some point. On one hand, who would blame the studio? It’s a licence to print money. On the same hand but slightly tilted, the vast majority of people who have seen the first two films actually want a sequel, seeing as both Batman Begins and the more recent helping were utterly brilliant.

Oh, plus Christian Bale isn’t going to be put in the slammer for three hundred years, or thereabouts.

But David S. Goyer, writer of the screenplay for both films, has other things to do for quite a while, so you plebians are going to have to wait a while for your next hit of Gotham’s favourite vigilante.

No, it would seem that in the great scheme of things, Goyer has what we sometimes like to call ‘a life outside Batman’. Hard to believe, but true nonetheless. His writing credits stretch far and wide, so as much as you out there in people land want a quick follow up to The Dark Knight, it ain’t gonna happen for a while.

Speaking to MTV, Goyer moved his lips and made some vibrations, which produced sounds of a certain type, conducted in a certain order. On paper, they look like this:

“I’m writing a new version of ‘The Invisible Man’ for Universal. I’m in the process of doing ['Invisible Man'] right now, and I’m working with some conceptual artists in tandem with writing the script. I’m actually working with one of the artists from ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘The Dark Knight.’”

David continued this strange and mystical feat of producing language through his oral cavity, informing MTV of how he saw his version of The Invisible Man taking shape:

“My take is kind of an extrapolation. It actually deals with a nephew of the first character…It involves Scotland Yard getting their hands on the current Invisible Man and basically saying, ‘Wow, you’d be a really good secret agent to send into Imperial Russia right now’. It starts off from there… I don’t want to give too much away, but I took what being invisible could mean to the next logical extreme. We do a lot of crazy things in it that are sort of far beyond what anyone’s done with it yet.”

But it doesn’t stop there – well, his words did, but his career didn’t – with Goyer also in line to write and direct the second installment of X-Men Origins, this one being about everybody’s favourite metal-bending oldie Magneto.

So it would seem that one of the main creative forces behind The Dark Knight won’t be returning to the franchise for a while. That’s okay, we can accept that. In fact, it gives us all the chance to see what happens in the meantime – in the space of a few years we can see how the ‘curse’ of the movie affects the cast and crew. More death? More car crashes? More probably-not-actually-pushing-your-mum?

The possibilities are endless. Well, not literally endless, but there are a lot of possibilities. And hopefully David S Goyer will see sense and dumb down Batman 3, for Robert Downey Jr’s sake.

The Welshman, who no one seems to realise is Welsh, has been recommended to receive a caution by the Crown Prosecution Service for his alleged actions, should he plead guilty to charges next month. If, however, he pleads not guilty then he could be looking at more severe penalties, all according to the bastion of truth, honour and glory that is The Sun newspaper.

Though, let’s be honest here – he probably wouldn’t be looking at any really severe charges. A fine, a slap on the wrist and a bruised ego, leaving the Baler ready to take on Terminator 4 and Batman 3. Unless the authorities were to decide on making an example of him and imprisoned him for life – alledgely pushing your mum and sister about is no laughing matter, after all.

Especially when they apparently want money from you.

Last month saw Christian Bale arrested on suspicion of assault, and while everyone went mental thinking the guy had beaten some evil-doers to death with their own shoes, we soon discovered it was allegedly for getting mad and pushing his family about a bit. Not that we condone that kind of behaviour, but it was a bit of a let-down.

He didn’t even do it in his Batman costume, allegedly.

After being released on bail, Bale bailed from the UK to get back to work. That sentence was pretty unnecessary, but hecklerspray enjoys using the same word three times in a row, so hush down.

Anyway, rumours were flung around about the reasons for the alleged assault, until it was generally accepted that the row came about over money. Being rich and all, Bale was apparently expected to give over a fair wodge of cash for his sister’s kids, simply for sharing blood ties with these people. And he allegedly wasn’t happy, so he apparently made his feelings clear with some shouting and a push.

He didn’t, as some had hoped, beat up his clown sister. In his Batman costume. While on fire. Upside down. Such a let-down, honestly.

And now, bringing this whole debacle to an end, hopefully, we are greeted with the news that the only thing that will befall Christian Bale – should he plead guilty to the alleged assault – is a caution. All this news, all this coverage, all the speculation over the ‘curse’ of The Dark Knight and he’s getting told ‘don’t do it again’.

Maybe Robert Downey Jr can provoke a better reaction from the Baler after his non-too flattering comments about Batman, and we can get some genuine controversy going. A fistfight. In public. With both actors in full costume.

It’s not like Iron Man or The Dark Knight need any more publicity, it’s just that we need something exciting to happen that isn’t death, attempted murder, countries getting invaded or some crap sporting event in a country where people don’t exactly enjoy what you would call ‘freedom’. You know – just to keep us going.

Please?

Michael Caine hasn’t smacked a gypsy on the head with a shovel? Morgan Freeman hasn’t accidentally fallen down a lift shaft? Good, then that really is the end of interminable Dark Knight hype. So let’s start hyping up Batman 3 instead, then.

Although nobody knows for sure who the Batman 3 villain will be, Catwoman is emerging as a fan favourite, for some completely unknown reason. And Angelina Jolie seems to be the frontrunner to play her. That’s not just berserk internet lust talking – definitive 1960s Catwoman Julie Newmar seems to think she’d be a good fit, too. Still, if that falls through there’s always Kerry Katona. Or death. Let’s go with death.

With The Dark Knight storming past all kinds of box office records at the moment, it’s become clear that topping it will be an insanely difficult job for Christopher Nolan. Surely the only way to make Batman 3 longer or more depressing than The Dark Knight would be to make it about a leukemia patient choking on his own vomit in slow motion for six solid hours.

So perhaps Christopher Nolan should try a different tack for the follow-up. Maybe he could make Batman 3 happier, by having The Joker return as an actual joker who dances round giving balloon animals to children and making everyone jolly. And there’s always the Bat-Nipples. Never forget the Bat-Nipples.

Of course, Christopher Nolan’s easiest escape route would be to shove Catwoman into Batman 3 and hope that there are enough creepy men around to go and see it for no other reason than because they’re perverts. After all, if people have been going crazy because The Dark Knight has giant IMAX footage of a bank robbery, imagine how crazy they’ll go if Batman 3 has giant IMAX footage of Catwoman’s vulva outlined through a rubber catsuit.

Yes yes, we know that there are reports suggesting that Catwoman won’t be in Batman 3, but we’re not so sure. Especially now that Angelina Jolie is reportedly interested in the role.

Julie Newmar – the greatest Catwoman ever according to everyone who isn’t an idiot – has come forward as saying that Angelina Jolie would be the best choice to play Catwoman in Batman 3, and she’s even gone as far as to suggest that Angelina is already lobbying for the part. According to the New York Daily News:

“Angelina would own the part. My industry friends tell me [she] has made inquiries about the role… I can understand how it would pique her interest. Catwoman is Batman’s one true love. She’s tremendously popular with women because she’s both a heroine and a villainess.”

That’s great. True, all we’ve got to go on is the blithely-spoken word of a 74-year-old who hasn’t been Catwoman for 40 years, but a little thing like that won’t stop us getting excited. Especially since Christopher Nolan’s fondness for real-life explanations for the Batman world would mean that Angelina Jolie would probably have to play a Catwoman with some kind of serious psychological condition. Mental illness is sexy!

However, we’re only prepared to accept Angelina Jolie as Catwoman in Batman 3 so long as our new hero, French police spokeswoman Olivia Poupot, can also be cast as Commissioner Gordon’s brilliantly dismissive European sidekick. She’s already fairly incredible at being bored by Angelina Jolie, you see.

In fact, people are going so potty over The Dark Knight that they’ve started to pretend that they’ve already seen it just so they can move onto speculation over Batman 3. So we may as well do the same. It’s not like we’ve got anything better to do.

Batman screenwriters David Goyer and Jonah Nolan have responded to claims that the baddies in Batman 3 will be Catwoman and The Penguin by saying that the baddies in Batman 3 definitely won’t be Catwoman and The Penguin. They’ve got a whole raft of other villains to chose from, so why pick the two most obvious? Especially when nobody’s put Lola Lasagne in a Batman movie yet.

Believe what you read and you’ll hear that The Dark Knight is as good as The Godfather II, that The Dark Knight is so profound that your life will be changed forever by two and a half hours of watching a man in a silly rubber costume riding a bike, and that Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker is so perfect that all Oscars past present and future should be posthumously given to Heath, melted down and made into a single giant Oscar that does the dance from 10 Things I Hate About You every hour on the hour.

Is The Dark Knight that good? Buggered if we know, but we’ve been suckered in by the hype as much as anyone else. So, to try and combat our feelings of market-manipulated vulnerability, let’s try and take control by starting up a bunch of hype about Batman 3.

Christian Bale is already keen to make another Batman movie and, so long as Christopher Nolan decides that he wants to, it’s pretty much a done deal already. Which begs the question – which of Batman’s villains will feature in Batman 3?

Obviously the two main choices are The Penguin and Catwoman. They’re just as iconic as The Joker and they’ve as yet been ignored by the Nolan Batman series. However, we have our reservations.

For example, The Penguin is usually seen as a comedy character, and Christopher Nolan would rather cut his balls off than have a moment of light relief in one of his Batman films. And as for Catwoman… given what Nolan has done to The Joker, we’re not sure that we’re ready to have our life-long Catwoman fetish ruined by a scar-covered mess with matted hair and a freaky make-up job.

Luckily, Batman writers David Goyer and Jonah Nolan agree with us, although their reasoning has slightly less to do with the preservation of a slightly unnatural sexual fantasy than ours. Totalfilm reports:

“In the first movie we use Ra’s Al Ghul and The Scarecrow, who had not been in the movies before, and had not been in the sixties TV show before. And there are dozens if not hundreds of other characters that fit that bill. Everyone says its gotta be The Penguin or Catwoman… well I completely disagree.”

Of course, there are hundreds of various Batman villains that could be used in Batman 3, so we’ll just have to sit and wait to see which ones get used.

Needless to say, we’ll never be happy until Schwarzenegger reprises his role as Mr Freeze, because if there’s one thing that Christopher Nolan is shit at, it’s the ice-based pun.

What would you rather have – a critically-acclaimed immersive crime drama or a great big European guy painted blue shouting things like “You’re not sending me to the cooler!”? Mr Freeze wins every time. It’s not even a contest.