• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Batman

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
2nd Batman

Heath Ledger to Play the Joker
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
By Sara Stewart



I wish I could quit you, Batman.

"Brokeback Mountain" star Heath Ledger will swap his spurs and saddle for whiteface and a twisted leer to play Batman arch villain the Joker, Warner Bros. announced Monday.

The sequel to last year's "Batman Begins" will be titled "The Dark Knight," and is slated to go into production early next year, the studio said.


In addition to Ledger, the film will reportedly see the return of Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, Michael Caine as Alfred the butler and Gary Oldman as Lt. James Gordon.

Internet speculation has run wild over the past year on the subject of what director Christopher Nolan will do to follow up his first "Batman," said by many critics to be the best of the Batman films.

In addition to the Joker, there could be another casting announcement on the horizon: The Batman fan site batman-on-film.com mentions Philip Seymour Hoffman may be in talks to play the Penguin.
 
Upvote 0
BoxCar_Willie said:
In addition to the Joker, there could be another casting announcement on the horizon: The Batman fan site batman-on-film.com mentions Philip Seymour Hoffman may be in talks to play the Penguin.
Click to expand...

Hoffman as the Penguin would be brilliant.

Can't say I like the Heath Ledger casting. He won't be able to even come close to Jack Nicholson. (At least it's not Brokeback "mother fucking" Aquaman Jake Gyllenhaal)
 
Upvote 0
StadiumDorm said:
Can't say I like the Heath Ledger casting. He won't be able to even come close to Jack Nicholson. (At least it's not Brokeback "mother fucking" Aquaman Jake Gyllenhaal)
Click to expand...

I think it's an interesting choice--and while I agree you can't top Nicholson's Joker, that's partly because he was so "over the top", and Christopher Nolan's version should be relatively more grounded (just as I assume his Penguin would not be a Tim Burton-style freak but more of a fatcat mobster in a tux). Definitely a challenge to live up to the expectations that go with a character like the Joker, so it will be interesting to see what Ledger/Nolan do with it.

“I'm excited to continue the story we started with Batman Begins,” added Nolan. “Our challenge in casting The Joker was to find an actor who is not just extraordinarily talented but fearless. Watching Heath Ledger's interpretation of this iconic character taking on Christian Bale’s Batman is going to be incredible.”
 
Upvote 0
Batman is always about the villains!
Those are the choice roles!
Heath Ledger as Joker? A joke?
He's not worthy of that role!
I don't like Bale as Batman, either.
But, I guess Micheal Keaton has had it with that role. :(
 
Upvote 0
I thought the Keaton/Batman movies set the standard.
Just excellent transformation of a Marvel Comic to the big screen.

Jack Nicholson as Joker was perfect.
Danny Devito as Penguin was perfect.

All those movies since have been substandard.
My opinion.

I also love the Spiderman movies!
Again, excellent Marvel Comic to big screen adaption!
 
Upvote 0
Again, what didn't you like about the way Bale played Batman?

As for the entire movie, I would agree that the latest installment did not feature as strong of a villain.
 
Upvote 0
Taosman said:
Jack Nicholson as Joker was perfect.
Click to expand...

We can all agree with that, but then, it wasn't actually the Joker that killed Bruce Wayne's parents, so Tim Burton was already way off the reservation, and the recent trend in superhero movies is to be faithful to the "canon".

Taosman said:
Danny Devito as Penguin was perfect.
Click to expand...

I very much disagree here: the second Burton Batman was a ridiculous caricature of a movie, and Penguin is supposed to be a "gentleman of crime", not a weird mutated freak from the sewer. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a great enough actor to make us all forget about that digression...
 
Upvote 0
Taosman said:
I thought the Keaton/Batman movies set the standard.
Just excellent transformation of a Marvel Comic to the big screen.

Jack Nicholson as Joker was perfect.
Danny Devito as Penguin was perfect.

All those movies since have been substandard.
My opinion.

I also love the Spiderman movies!
Again, excellent Marvel Comic to big screen adaption!
Click to expand...


Batman is a DC Comic.
To me Bale played Batman the way Batman is portrayed in the comics. Batman is not a superhero. The only good scene Keaton did during his stretch was the very beginning of the first movie where he scared the crap out of the thugs on the roof. Most of what Burton put on the screen had very little respect for the Source material. I wouldn't say his movies were abominations but darn close.

I enjoyed the Spiderman movies because they had respect for the source material (although I'm not a spiderman "fan"). As did this last Batman.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
I like Ledger as an actor, and won't let one bad role change my opinion. As The Joker I think that he will have a very different role than Nicholson had. Probably just be your basic wacked out criminal genious, rather than the over the top nutjob that Nicholson brilliantly played.
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top