csaI am looking forward to the official announcement about the sequel to Batman Begins just so we can end the rumors that have been flying across the internet for the last few months. I wonder where these things start – are they honest to God reflections of the thought processes of the people behind the new Batman franchise? Do the rumors come from pranksters who think that giving false info to a movie web site somehow mitigates their own stunning loser status? Or are they garbled like a message in a game of Telephone – someone posts a dream casting list on a forum and somehow it ends up being considered an real scoop?

If I was more of a cynical bastard I might think that sites like Batman On Film, sister site to Hungry Like the Flash, make these things up to keep the hits rolling in during fallow periods. I don’t think that, so don’t send me a sensitive, defensive (sensey defensey) e-mail. I am sure the boys at Batman on Film are wonderful – but because of the business they are in, they probably have to print every wild bullshit rumor that comes their way.

Among the latest wild bullshit sounding rumors the site has printed is a list of stellar actors attached to a number of roles – Emily Watson as Harley Quinn, Jake Gyllenhaal as Two-Face, Brad Dourif as Dr. Arkham, Bob Hoskins as an Italian mobster, greatest actor of his generation Karl Urban as The Black Mask and Vanessa Redgrave as "female character close to Bruce Wayne and Alfred". That last one sounds like Dr Leslie Thompkins to me, an ersatz mother figure for Bruce Wayne in the later Batman comic mythos.

I wonder about this stuff because Christopher Nolan is off making The Prestige right now, and no one at Warner Bros has come out and said that Batman Begins Again is happening, such as it is, which is really the most surprising thing for me.