I almost expect the next villian to be Catwoman. Especially since they killed off the female lead in TDK.

I have always liked Ventriloquist. He is my favorite little known villain.

King Snake wasn't bad either. I thought he was pretty cool in Tim Drake's origin story as the third Robin.

The Reaper from Batman: Year Two and Full Circle was cool. I always saw him as DC's Punisher.

Clock King would be a kind of cool choice. I'd like to see someone strong, a la Bane or Killer Croc. Make Batman go up against someone physically powerful, so he has to use his wits to beat them. Hugo Strange would be interesting, but I think they already delved into the psychological stuff with The Scarecrow.

How would Killer Croc work in Nolan's realistic world? Croc has a skin disease that causes him to look like a crocodile. A Killer Croc without the crocodile look wouldn't really be Killer Croc...

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Penguin.

A buddy of mine keeps saying he wants Nolan to use Mr. Freeze in the next film. I do think there's great potential in a character like that(Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero is a good example of how to do it), but I just don't see how a realistic version of Freeze could be done.

Now someone like Poison Ivy is possible. Just get rid of the venom in her veins and have her use poisoned wax lips instead. An eco-terrorist plot would be just as relevant in a 3rd movie as the 9/11 subtext was in The Dark Knight. The problem is a Hollywood studio would never allow an environmentalist to be the villain in this day and age. It's not politically correct.

Catwoman could easily work. The downside there is that Michelle Pfeiffer already nailed the character in Batman Returns. I don't care much for that movie as a whole, but her performance is almost universally praised. It's a tough act to follow and there's not much else you can do with her that hasn't already been done.

The Riddler is a great choice if Nolan does the next one as more of a detective story. Who better to challenge Batman's investigative skills than a criminal who leaves riddles at the scenes of his crimes? And much like Heath Ledger went in a totally different direction after Jack Nicholson hammed it up in the 1989 Batman, another actor could do the same following in Jim Carrey's footsteps in Batman Forever.

Bane should be saved for somewhere down the line. When Batman/Bruce Wayne is getting too old for this sh-t. The Joker toyed with Batman and his allies psychologically and emotionally. Bane would challenge him physically.

Thanks, TheMovieMan, PopcornTreeCT, edstein, and Artman for the SPOILERS! NOTHING about the thread title or OP says TDK results will be touched upon. Not all of us saw TDK last night. SERIOUSLY. Not cool.

You probably shouldn't be reading about people making guesses on a 3rd movie if you haven't seen the 2nd.

Why open a thread about a sequel to a sequel if you haven't seen the first sequel yet? I'm just sayin.

yeah, why the hell would you read a thread speculating on the next film? pretty obvious there might be spoilers. :lol:

I do hope they go with Catwoman. While Michelle Pfeiffer will always hold a special place in my--ahem--heart for her performance, there are other places to take that character.

I don't want to see villains like Mr. Freeze, or Clayface, or Killer Croc. Nolan has done a great job of grounding the series in reality, and I'd like to see it stay that way.

I think it kind of sucks that recent comic book movies trying to keep them realistic renders a lot of cool villains looking silly though. As cool as it is believing that Batman exists in the world, it sucks that certain villains won't fit in.

Same with Iron Man, making Mandarin seem like a stretch. Even the X-Men went away from aliens and space an stuff with Phoenix. Fantastic Four did OK with Silver Surfer, but then Galactus had to be changed because of the silly factor.

Actually all you could gather from my post (which was hardly the first as you pointed out) was that two-face was in TDK. I'd find it hard to believe you didn't already know that...especially visiting these forums.

I don't see too many people mention the fact that Fox tells Bruce his new suit will "Stop a cat"

if that ain't foreshadowing I don't know what is

I hope you're joking.

You can't possible expect a speculation thread about a future sequel to not contain total spoilers about the current film.

Alfred dies by the way.

Catwoman or the Riddler would be the most logical choices. If they do use the Riddler, please cast Michael Emerson (Ben Linus from Lost) in the role.

You just had to go and spoil that for him, didn't you...

SPOILER TAGS.

No excuse.

In regular threads I totally agree.

But not in review threads or sequel speculation threads. That should be obvious.

Oh yes. I had forgotten. I like the idea of the Catwoman, with maybe working in the Penguin as an arms dealer (I know, these two characters would be a direct echo of Batman Returns). I'm not so sure with the Riddler; I'm just a casual Batfan, but I've always felt that there is too much overlap between him and the Joker as far as characteristics.

As much fun as TDK is, I definitely think a third film is a necessity - but Joker will be a tough act to follow.

As far as I am concerned, Nolan is two-for-two and I'm sure he can kick some A with a third flick.

I dunno, I think they already blew their load with The Joker. Who could top him?

I'm curious about this, too. My thought on the Riddler is what if Sal Maroni becomes the Riddler? I don't know if he has the intelligence to pull it off, but he's a gangster and he already has a cane from when Bats threw him off of that fire escape. He certainly would have it out for Batman right now, but with him on the run that would question whether someone needs to openly challenge him with an alias of some sort.

I think a Bane angle would be great, and that could set up a fourth, completely different film with an Azrael-type character donning the suit. From there Bale and co. could take a few years off, come back, and do a "Dark Knight Returns" to wrap up an epic five-film series.

EDIT: Just remembered that Maroni might have died in the car crash after his driver was shot.

Also, as for the five-film epic, I know it's a pipe dream. It sure would be nice, though!

I still think we're kidding ourselves if we think we're getting more than three movies from the current cast/crew. Best we can hope for is that they hire a good director, have a great script and throw a pile of money at Bale, Caine and Oldman to get them back for one or two more.

Nolan could use the original Clayface, Basil Karlo. He was just a normal man. Clayfaces 2, 3, and 4 are the ones that are actually made out of clay. Basil ended up injecting himself with the clay serum to become the "Ultimate Clayface" but originally he was a normal man.

Although normal Basil Karlo wouldn't make a terribly exciting villain for a feature length movie....