What to Expect from Christopher Nolan's Batman 3

Now a year after The Dark Knight hit theaters, it's time to hit the ground running on the process and progression on what road Batman 3 might take. Christopher Nolan's status as director is still unknown at the time, as many outlets have reported him fully concentrating on his latest film, Inception, which drops July 16, 2010 and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard along with Batman regulars Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow), Michael Caine (Alfred) and Ken Watanabe (Ra's al Ghul).

A lot of people have speculated already on the film, such as Eddie Murphy portraying Riddler, Megan Fox or Cher as Catwoman, even Miley Cyrus as Batgirl. I want to take an in depth look at the actual possibilities for the film and ignore the scuttlebutt of the internet that just makes no logical sense in this new Batman world that was created with Batman Begins.

Story

So far, Bruce Wayne has become Batman and conquered his fears in Batman Begins, and he took his crime fighting to another level all together in The Dark Knight while fighting the maniac known as The Joker, and losing his friends Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent to the carnage that thrashed Gotham to its core. Bruce now needs a full come-around and an intelligent villain to show off more of the Dark Knight's detective skills. After the Joker's rampage, a war could brew between mobsters and the costumed freaks. This could be a way to introduce smaller villains in the Batman mythology, such as Firefly, Calendar Man or Ventriloquist. Leave Scarecrow and Mister Zsasz behind. Zsasz served his purpose in Batman Begins and the Scarecrow arc closed with his capture at the beginning of The Dark Knight.

Gotham City could become an even more dangerous place to live with the costumed freaks and mobsters gang war escalating. Gotham's wealthy elite could start outsourcing their businesses and begin to flee the sinking ship, leaving it all to Bruce Wayne to save the day by standing up for Gotham the way his parents did before him. This could give the Bruce Wayne character more dramatic weight to work with aside from the mask and the Batman persona. It could also work as a way to properly tie off the themes of Bruce honoring his parents that began in Batman Begins.

Villains

With the loss of Heath Ledger and how hard it rocked the Nolan camp and everyone involved with The Dark Knight, I think it's safe to say that for now the Joker character will not be returning. It could very well be too emotionally challenging for Nolan to have to recast the character after how Ledger made it his own. The Riddler is the most likely choice, with the fan favorite to play him seemingly being Johnny Depp. Another villain that could pop up is Catwoman, who hopefully would be played by someone who not only has acting chops, but someone who looks good in a leather outfit like Kate Beckinsale.

The Riddler could be an FBI profiler who comes in to assist the Gotham City Police Department in finding Batman after the death of D.A. Harvey Dent and the murders that Batman took the blame for at the finale of The Dark Knight. He could slowly become obsessed with finding Bats and ends up going as far as committing crimes just so Batman will show up. Nigma needs to lose his mind to completely become the Riddler persona, so have some innocent people die during one of the crimes or set-ups so he takes on the extra persona to bring forth his love and riddles and try and bring in Batman once and for all.

As for Catwoman, she could be one of the wealthy elite whose business goes under so Selina Kyle takes to becoming a cat burglar to keep the money rolling in. After a few times, the experience thrills her so much that she makes an outfit and it becomes almost a past-time for Kyle in-between all the parties and get-togethers for the Gotham elite. During one such event, she should meet and grow a crush on Bruce Wayne while also meeting Batman during one of her burglaries. Have the two flirt and fight a bit, maybe even have her help Batman bring down Nigma. Of course, she'd have to have another motive for her actions as she isn't quite good or bad, but it could work well with Christopher Nolan on board.

Side Villains

Every movie thus far has had them. Batman '89 had Bob the Goon, Batman Returns had Max Shreck, Batman Forever had Two-Face's henchmen Sugar and Spice, Batman & Robin had Bane, Batman Begins had Mister Zsasz and The Dark Knight had the return of Scarecrow. So now it's time to flesh out the smaller characters. Firefly would be an excellent cameo character. Just bring him in as a pyromaniac that Batman could have a fight with. Give him some sort of nice flame-resistant suit and a flame thrower and just have him call himself The Firefly and bam! Or Ventriloquist, who could be portrayed as a hit man who carries around the doll Scarface but is really a lethal shot, just a little off his rocker as he thinks the doll is the controlling one in the weird pairing. Calendar Man could simply be a villain that kills on every holiday if the third movie was to span a certain amount of time and he could appear every once in a while throughout the course of the film.