Bale is Batman
 

Christian Bale is next Batman

Let the flame war on Hollywood begin.

Give him a chainsaw and business cards and that man is unstoppable

I think he would make a good Batman. Better than some of the guys they have gotten to do it....

Actually, out of all of the names that have been thrown around for Batman, he's one of the best choices. He's a good actor (we'll ignore that Reign of Fire actually happened), and does actually look the part.

I have to agree with Baldrick. I'd still rather see Aronofsky directing the next Batman than Nolan though.

Bale is awesome.

Bale is very dark and have the ability to the Bruce Wayne/Batman role very well. Check out his character in Equillibrum he is fucking amazing. Good call!

Peace.

V.

I'm starting to get kinda excited about this flick. Whether or not you actually like Nolan or Bale, its kinda hard to say they're untalented, which is more than you can say for most of the people attached to the recent Batman flicks.

Hey, Bale doesn't look sound like a bad choice at all.
But the best part about the new movie...you guessed it!
No Schumacher!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this the batman movie that frank miller was involved with, or not? Is that still even happening?

I'm happy with Bale. I'm even happier no Schumacher.

Bale is good, Michael Keaton is better.

Holy shit.


You all didn't blast this fucker out the water... I'm impressed.

Sounds better than batman and robin, but thats not saying much;).

Not sure who he is...but the Batman franchise comes down to the script and the director...all have sucked since the first one!

Schumacher absolutely ruined the Batman movies. I think he cared more about nipple suits than making a decent movie. Now Batman Forever wasn't too bad, but Batman & Robin is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Would it have been that tough to hire a music composer to write some new music for that movie or did they spend all their time on Dr. Freeze's crapmobile.

Bales is great. Equiblibrium is fantastic.

Keaton sucked as Batman. He is only like two foot tall. Come on give us a break, Batman is a hulk of a man.

I'm down with Bale being bats, but my real hope comes from it supposedly being about the earlier years of batman.

He's a much better choice than Ashton kutcher... Out of all the names I've seen thrown around he is the best.

It's an interesting choice. I think Bale should do a fine job.

I'm more interested in the studio's choice of Nolan as director. This could go either way. He is definately no Schumacher (all goofy show but no story) but he is also no Burton (all dark show and prblematic story).

My gut says that like Aliens 3 and the studio's choice of a newbie David Fincher, Warner Brothers feels that they can get cred with Nolan but are counting on the fact that he is still relatively wet behind the ears and can therefore be pushed around (in other words they've hired him because he's arty but they'll be pissed if he actually turns out to be arty).

Bale definitely fits the part of Bruce Wayne. I'm not so sure about Batman though - however I haven't seen Equilibrium yet, so the jury is still out. Nonetheless, there's no way he could beat Keaton.

Hopefully the directing will be a lot better though - the only one I've really been satisfied with was the first movie in that regard.

Bale was Bateman. Bale is Batman.
Had to do it.
I too would have preferred Aronofsky as the director. From what I've heard from him in interviews, he had a vision for a Batman film that wouldn't simply be a derivative of the previous ones. Then again, maybe that's one scared the studios.

No Aronofsky!? Damn! I was really lookign foward to that!

Yeah, Bale is a pretty good choice.

As for the previous films, that only decent one was the original "Batman" by Tim Burton. Batman Returns was mediocre. Batman Forever was watchable...but it far too "Hollywood" and "Pop"...where was the darkness? Instead we were given uberly camp performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey reminiscent of the Adam West vesrion of Batman.
As for Batman & Robin...actually no, lets not get into that.
I just hope that this new Batman is as balck as coal. :D

I gotta disagree with you on this one. The thing I always liked about Batman was that he was just a regular guy with a nasty past. The bigger they make him, the less interesting he is to me. I thought Keaton did a great job playing him.

Yea Keaton did a good job. I'm just glad they didn't give Clooney another chance. I think a better choice would have been that guy from LOTR who played Aragorn - Viggo Mortensen

Whether in the comic book, cartoons, or the camp 70s versions Batman was always taller than robin. Ketton didn't have a robin cause he would have had to stand on a box to be taller.

Hold on a second.... ASHTON KUCTHER AS BATMAN!?!?! That's perfect. That moron has all the grace of a bulldozer. There's no way he'd have been able to pull off Bruce Wayne.

I can see it now....
"Batman defeats a small gang of thugs, soars off into the night, arrives at the batmobile....but it's not where he parked it."
Batman says: "Awww...doooode, where's my car?"

Phleeeeze. That would have been worse than Mr. Freeze and his dorks on ice routine.

Clooney was ok.
Keaton was better.
Kilmer was unwatchable.

I think Bale will be alright. I remember him in Shaft and I know he can pull off the dark "Batman" side of the caracter. As long as he remembers there's a slightly softer, slightly confused "Bruce Wayne" side, he'll be fine.

Oh yeah, almost forgot the whole point of the post...

Bale as batman..... sounds good to me.

Keaton was the best on IMO.

It's a pity, I was really hoping that Justin Timberlake would get the part... oh well, I guess there's always Superman... ;)

Bale + Nolan = Reciepe for a Franchise Boost

I mean, what the fuck were they thinking with all the neon lights in the last 2 bat flicks/shits??!

Christian Bale I think will make a good Batman, he'll do a hell of a lot better than George Clooney, that's for sure. But how can you say that Keaton sucked as Batman, Marius1? He's the only one who played Batman and did more than one movie as Batman! I agree w/ everyone else who said Keaton was the best Batman, because he was.

Keaton is batman, bale will make the role kick ass again, but I would have liked to have seen what a comic book fan like Kevin Smith could have done.

we could have had mini-me play robin?

bale rox my sox .... hell make it happen better than clooney either way

the question is not will Bale be good enough for this Batman role?

the real question is will the role be good enough for Bale?

the last few Batman movies have been SHIT - even Clooney looked bad in that film.
i mean, if its going to be another waste of money like the last two, then wouldn´t the role be better suited to someone who can´t act, like Kilmer?

have those rumours about Bale taking over as James Bond after Brosnan finishes up surfaced again as well?

This is the best thing they could have done to save the franchaise. Baled is pretty good in the things he's done - loved American Psycho.

Batman & Robin was an abomination...

A british (and slightly fem) Batman? I'll wait and see.

Hopefully it will, with Nolan at the helm. He has a lot at stake: He has to show that Memento wasn't a fluke, after the rather mediocre Insomnia.

I find it funny that everyone mentions Memento and Insomnia but fails to speak word of The Following, in my mind that is the best Nolan helmed feature to date.

They were considering Ashton Kutcher?!?! Ack!

Ashton Kutcher as batman :lol: that's funny as hell.

He's a good actor, will be interesting to see him as Batman after seeing him as a psycho in American Psycho and a grammaton cleric in Equilibrium.

I'm hoping Bale will join the likes of Chris Reeve, Hugh Jackman, and Tobey Maguire.

As another cheesey over-acted super-hero?

You are right to some extent that Batman was a regular guy in the fact that he had no super powers.

What his nasty past did however was spur him to intense phyiscal training. The sort of training that gave him muscle enough to hold a grown man out over a ledge of the building and then hurl him back forcibly. That requires a lot of muscle.

you're thinking of tom welling from smallville, and all the failed batman actors.

I personally am I huge fan of Christian Bale, so I'd be happy to watch him in anything. I do think though that he'll do a great job as Batman. He can easily pull off the personality needed for Bruce Wayne, and having seen Equilibrium, he's more than capable of handling the physical aspect of Batman. (Or maybe it's the thought of him in a skin tight suit that just makes everything seem right. ;) :p ).

anybodys got to be better than George Clooney

He sure is a sexy cat, if this movie sucks it'll still pull in the numbers from all the women wanting to see Bale in tight leather.

NOTE TO BALE-LOVERS: Check out American Psycho, you may not like the film but you get an ass shot amongst other things of Bale.

I think Bale will do a good job, personally. And to the guy who said Batman needs to be played by a hulk of a man, the big rubber suit does all that for you. The key to Batman is his shattered psyche, something Michael Keaton managed to convey brilliantly. Val Kilmer got acted off screen by Carrey and Lee Jones, and I've not seen Batman and Robin, nor do I want to.

Does anyone know who the villain will be?

Ras A Ghul (sp) with a small cameo by The Scarecrow.

flamingdog,
Batman & Robin is one of the worst movies ever made, you're right, you don't wanna see it.

I will not argue over an opinion, especially when my opinions are fact.

Keaton was good but Bale will be better. The success of the movie itself hinges on who they pick as the villain. It's a good thing they waited so long to make another Batman, since we all needed time for the bad taste in our mouths to wash away, but I fear that when this movie is completed, we will be sick of superhero movies.

its about time they put the Scarecrow. but i read that the scarecrow thing is probably just rumours. he was one of my favourite bad guys in the cartoon. i really hope he doesn´t become part of another outrageous fuck-up by the production team like the last two films.
i also really liked the idea of Poison Ivy, and i thought Uma was a good choice... but sadly, that film just seriously sucked... and therefore ruined the character.

lets hope this doesn´t happen again.

IMO hed make a good batman, hes dary yet cheery at the same time, and he has a very prominent chin line, like batman.

I agree with many different opinions here. Keaton did a very good job, and got out before it got too cartoonish and ridiculous.
The later movies destroyed many characters, especially Bane.
I think that Bale is a good choice for the studio, but I think it is a mistake for Bale. Too many people just steer clear of superhero movies in general, and I think it will hurt him because it will be his most public role and generally the critics are not kind to these types of films. A bad review in a very public film could damage Bale for a long time. Granted, Spider-man and the X-men films created a mini-superhero boom with both the critics and the general public, but I think that Daredevil and the Hulk just destroyed the genre again. People will be lining up to just blast the next few superhero movies.

I don't think it's a bad career choice, you've got excellent director and an excellent actor paired up, I know you can't rely on this 100% (Hulk - Ang Lee, Eric Bana) but at the moment the movie looks like it'll be quite good. As for people steering clear of ComicBook movies, untrue, though DareDevil was a crapfest is pulled in good numbers and had a huge DVD sales record. I need not mention how well Spiderman and X-Men have done, not to mention Blade either.

One thing that'll guarantee viewers is the fact that this is a Batman film, BATMAN, he's universal and everyone loves him.

Batman is a scientist.

an actor is only as good as the script allows him to be...

This is exactly my position.

Exactly.

Bale is a dman good choice. Better than Freddie Prinze Jr., or Ashton Kutcher or Clooney, or Kilmer. Keaton was a great Batman. You can't beat his explosive temper. He played a great down-to-earth millionaire and always seemed to have a dark enough edge to be dangerous. I think Bale may be able to accomplish this effect even better.

I want Frankie Muniz to play Robin.

you can't be serious...
There is no way I can see Frankie Muniz as Robin...
unless he played Tim Drake and not Dick Grayson, then maybe then I could possible see a fit, but thats stretching it for me.

Or they could make him the 2nd Robin, Jason Todd and kill him off in the movie. :) That would make it interesting.


As for Bale, i've only seen him in Shaft and American Psycho. He looks like he could pull the dark aspects out of The Dark Knight without a problem. The other softer side is what i'm unsure about.

Of course I was joking, Macaully Culkin is the only reasonable choice.

eh...well, since this is based on the early years of the Dark Knight we're gonna need someone smaller to play Robin if anyone at all...

*Lightbulb goes off*

I say we use Gary Coleman for the part of Robin :)
Imagine the stunt possibilities people!!!

Jake Lloyd did a good job of being a young Vader, he'd make a great flashback sequence Batman.

I hope this is a joke.

Bale will be a great Batman. This guy is intense, just like Batman.

I hope you're joking.

You're insane! Keaton was easily the best Batman -- dark, introverted, and brooding.

Bale is an awesome choice. Deep down I think nobody wants to believe that Schumacher killed the franchise off FOREVER. Funny thing is, he only made two of the movies, but it always feels like he made 3 or 4 - a foggy parade of nondescript dross throughout the nineties and you can't even remember the names of the movies. Let's get back with the program here.

And I only want a Robin if he has serious emotional problems.

I think Bale is an excellent choice also. I just hope they get rid of Batgirl, get rid of Robin if all he's gonna do is be a little sidekick, and just focus on Bruce Wayne. Make it so the Joker can come back. That would be awesome. :)

Out of the people they were thinking about, i think he's a fairy good choice.