Batman Goes "Psycho"; Bale Cast
Well, Batman always did have a dark side...
Christian Bale, who carved up costars with a chainsaw in American Psycho, will don the Dark Knight's cape and cowl for the latest big-screen Batman, Warner Bros. announced Thursday.
Shooting on the as-yet-untitled flick is scheduled to start in February. Memento's Christopher Nolan will direct.
Bale, 29, becomes the seventh overall actor to star in a Caped Crusader film, dating back to the 1940s serials, and the fourth member of Warners' Batmen fraternity.
In winning the part, Bale denied the Batdreams of Jake Gyllenhaal, Billy Crudup, Joshua Jackson, Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later) and Eion Bailey (Band of Brothers), all of whom screentested for the studio last week.
Gyllenhaal previously was thisclose to stepping into Spider-man's jammies when Tobey Maguire briefly ran afoul of producers prior to production on the now-shooting Spider-man 2.
But the Bubble Boy's bubble was burst when Maguire made up with the powers-that-be, and again when Bale impressed them.
"What I see in Christian is the ultimate embodiment of Bruce Wayne," Nolan said in a statement. "He has exactly the balance of darkness and light that we are looking for."
Bale is the first U.K.-born Batman, and the first one to call Ms. Gloria Steinem "stepmom." (Dad David is married to the pioneering feminist.)
He follows in the bootsteps of Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney, who each headlined the big-budget Warners flicks. Keaton starred in Batman and Batman Returns for Tim Burton. Kilmer inherited the codpiece in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever; Clooney got lost inside the costume in Batman and Robin, also directed by Schumacher.
Nolan's Batman is slated for a 2005 release. By the time it opens, eight years will have passed since Batman and Robin un-entertained audiences with lame one-liners in 1997, the longest gap between adventures since the studio's franchise began frequenting multiplexes in 1989.
Warners has struggled for years to get a new Superman, Batman or Superman-and-Batman movie off the ground. While its Superman flick remains Kryptonite-bitten, Nolan's has gone relatively smoothly. He was signed to direct in January.
It's believed Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer (Blade) are looking to tell the tale of a slightly less manly--well, younger--Batman.
No word on other castmembers, including who'll play super baddie to Bale's super good guy. Officially, there's no word on which super baddie will be drafted from the comic books for the movie. On the Internet, the buzz is that the Scarecrow, another smart guy gone screwy who kinda looks like a demonic version of the straw-stuffed softie from The Wizard of Oz, will get the call.
While the Scarecrow isn't a high-profile villain the likes of the Joker, he was featured on the 1990s' Batman cartoon series. And, plus, the Joker has already been used up by the Warners franchise. So have the Penguin, Two-Face, the Riddler, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze and Catwoman, soon to be immortalized in her own Halle Berry flick.
Prior to becoming an American Psycho, Bale represented for the XY-chromosomal set in Little Women and fought dragons in Reign of Fire. He found fame at age 13 in Steven Spielberg's World War II epic, Empire of the Sun.
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