Just before Thanksgiving I had one of those phone calls with Devin where we talked about Christian Bale. In this case, it was the (at the time) only partially confirmed rumor that Bale would be in Terminator 4. AICN had just run some info, and Devin quickly followed with news he’d been sitting on for a while; the upshot as detailed by Devin last week was that Bale seemed to be on board as John Connor. Very well-informed speculation it seemed to some, without any official confirmation.

That confirmation has come — Variety reports that Bale is in talks to appear as a mid-30s John Connor for McG in Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, which is currently scheduled to shoot in Budapest beginning in April.

And, as always, Variety turns up its nose on upstart media. The trade says, ‘Bale has been rumored to be involved in the project for weeks, but there had been conflicting reports about his role.’ No mention of AICN or CHUD, the sites that actually brought you the news. No surprise there, though.