‘The Dark Knight’ Screenwriter David Goyer On ‘Batman 3’ Rumors: ‘It’s All B.S.’

It’s the second most successful movie of all-time, a cultural tour de force that’s reverberated with critics and fans alike, redefining what a summer blockbuster and a comic movie can be capable of.

To paraphrase the Joker himself: It’s changed things. There’s no going back.

But there is, of course, going forward. Three months removed from “The Dark Knight,” and it seems all anybody wants to talk about is “Batman 3” – a new “scoop” coming our way every couple of days.

Yet whether it’s that Chris Nolan has signed on, and will start pre-production early next year, or that Johnny Depp and Philip Seymour Hoffman will play the villains, or that Cher (Cher!) is lining up to wear Catwoman’s claws, there’s one thing that each and every supposed scoop has in common, “Batman Begins” and “Dark Knight” storyman David Goyer told MTV News:

“It’s all B.S.,” he said. “ALL of it.”

That means, no, Nolan has not signed on (yet). No, there is no casting, let alone TALK, of villains, and, no, nobody is certain to return.

“Chris and I haven’t even talked about it. He quite understandably is taking a long, long vacation and wants to purge himself,” Goyer said.

- from MTV

The Dark Knight coming to Blu-ray on December 9

Heath Ledger! Christian Bale! Batman, Joker, Blu-ray! With nearly a billion dollars in the bank since the film’s July release, Warner Bros. has announced that its box office juggernaut “The Dark Knight” will be hitting store shelves December 9 as a two-disc special edition, available in both standard DVD and high-definition Blu-ray (as well as a special “Batpod Edition”).

Trumpeting over three hours of bonus material, the collection will include a bevy of special features including two documentaries surrounding the film, the character and his gadgets, six episodes of “Gotham Tonight” (”Gotham Cable’s premiere news program”), Joker cards, concept and poster art, production stills, and more.

- from MTV

Awards screeners feeling Blu

Warner Bros. is upping the ante in the awards-season screener game by going Blu-ray, and Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” could be the big beneficiary.

The studio has sent out a mailer to Academy members, offering them the option of receiving screeners in the Blu-ray format in lieu of watermarked regular DVDs. Nolan, a proponent of Blu-ray, urged the studio to make history with the foray into new technology.

“We really tried to do a lot with the film technically to give audiences a real reason to go see the film in theaters,” including shooting sequences in large-format Imax, the “Dark Knight” director said in an interview.

But for Academy members who haven’t seen it in theaters, or simply want to view it again, he said, “the Blu-ray version is vastly superior to DVD. You can actually see the things we did in Imax, and it will give Academy members the best possible chance to see what we did technically.”

- from THR

Sorry Bryan Singer, but Warner Bros. decides to reboot Superman!

It’s official! Bryan Singer has been toss to the curb (um, maybe he can go back and reboot his abandoned X-Franchise, which Ratner crapped upon). Superman will be reborn, rebooted, similar to the Incredible Hulk, and we say YES! Here’s Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov talking to the WSJ:

Warner Bros. also put on hold plans for another movie starring multiple superheroes — known as “Batman vs. Superman” — after the $215 million “Superman Returns,” which had disappointing box-office returns, didn’t please executives. “‘Superman’ didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,” says Mr. Robinov. “It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned.” “Had ‘Superman’ worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009,” he adds. “But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all.”

With “Batman vs. Superman” and “Justice League” stalled, Warner Bros. has quietly adopted Marvel’s model of releasing a single film for each character, and then using those movies and their sequels to build up to a multicharacter film. “Along those lines, we have been developing every DC character that we own,” Mr. Robinov says.

‘Dark Knight’ Becomes 2nd Highest Domestic Grosser Behind Only ‘Titanic’

It’s no joke: the Warner Bros comic book caper achieved this domestic gross milestone today on its 30th day of release. As of Friday, The Dark Knight’s North American cumulative stood at $459,608,000, just behind Fox’s Star Wars (incluing all re-releases) with $460,998,007. No. 1 is still Paramount’s Titanic with $600,788,188. Of course, none of these totals are adjusted for inflation, or higher ticket prices, or number of tickets sold, etc.

- from Nikki

What’s more bogus? This fake Bigfoot nonsense or jackass Brian Austin Green saying that he wants to be the Ridder in the next Batman?

We vote idiot Brian Austin Green. Dark Knight director Chris Nolan would never put such a talentless hack in the Batman franchise.

PS. Even though we WANT TO BELIEVE, the whole Bigfoot thing was bullshit too. The DNA results came back 1/2 possum. Nice:

“The promised evidence for Bigfoot DNA turned out to be an e-mail from Curt Nelson, a University of Minnesota scientist who analyzed DNA samples provided by the two men. Nelson said one of the samples came from a human, the other from an opossum. The presenters sidestepped the issue by saying that is what their Bigfoot must have recently consumed.” – from Discover

‘Thunder’ to strike down the ‘Knight’

After four weekends at the top, “The Dark Knight” should finally get washed out of first place.

DreamWorks and Paramount’s big-budget comedy “Tropic Thunder” opens at 3,319 playdates on Wednesday and has a good shot at staying No. 1 through the weekend.

Studio is looking for the Hollywood sendup, which stars Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr., to at least match the overall five-day take of last week’s “Pineapple Express” at $41.3 million.

- from Variety

The Dark Knight takes down Stoners

Batman was higher than Hollywood’s newest pot heads.

“The Dark Knight” took in $26 million to finish as the No. 1 movie for the fourth straight weekend, beating the stoner comedy “Pineapple Express,” which opened in second place with $22.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The weekend haul lifted the Warner Bros. Batman sequel to No. 3 on the all-time domestic box-office charts with $441.5 million, behind only “Titanic” ($600.8 million) and the original “Star Wars” ($461 million).

The last movie to remain No. 1 for four consecutive weekends was “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in late 2003 and 2004, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers. That movie did it during a much slower time of year, with nowhere near the competition “The Dark Knight” has faced during Hollywood’s busy summer season.

- from Huffpost

Friday Neck & Neck: Is ‘Dark Knight’ Too Smoking Hot For ‘Pineapple Express’?

Very early numbers show Friday’s box office is too close to call. Sony is claiming its Pineapple Express won the day. But Warner Bros is saying its The Dark Knight came out on top. And a third studio emails me that the two films are even steven. Oh, this is going to be a fun weekend at the two pics fight for domestic gross supremacy! So, either both films made $7.5+ million, or Pineapple Express made $7.6M and Dark Knight $7.4M, or else Dark Knight made $7.6M and Pineapple Express made $7.4M. Hollywood emails are flying fast and furiously! – from Nikki

David Goyer May Bump ‘Magneto’ To Make Way For ‘Invisible Man’

David Goyer is a busy man these days. Making the most popular film of the year, and one of the highest-grossing movies of all time, will do that to a guy.

Now, the “Dark Knight” screenwriter is hoping to capitalize on his success with such recent superhero scripts as “The Flash” and “X-Men Origins: Magneto,” which he’ll also direct.

“That may be next,” he told us recently. But first, Goyer revealed, he hopes to vanish for awhile.

“I’m writing a new version of ‘The Invisible Man’ for Universal,” said the red-hot writer/director, who was at Comic-Con recently to promote “The Unborn,” a horror flick due in theaters next year. “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.’ So it could be ‘Magneto,’ or it could be ‘The Invisible Man’ next.”

- from MTV