A while back, a rumor set the internets aflame claiming that Johnny Depp was up for the role of The Riddler and Phillip Seymour Hoffman was looking to become Penguin in director Chris Nolan’s theoretical sequel. Today, Michael Caine, who plays noble father figure/butler Alfred to Christian Bale’s brooding Batman told MTV’s Splash Page “I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, ‘Are we going to make another one?’ They said yeah. I said, ‘How the hell are we going to top Heath? And he says ‘I’ll tell you how you top Heath — Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin.’ I said, ‘S–t, they’ve done it again!’”
Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Are they really thinking along those lines? In short, NO. In all likelihood, this was an executive making a little joke about the rumor. There’s not even the thought of a script yet. Plus, why would they rehash villains from the previous Batman films (the Joker was a must given his iconic nature in the Batman mythos but the others aren’t). Let’s just take a breather until at least Nolan signs on for a sequel, please.