For those of you clamoring for a Robin movie after the underwhelming ending of The Dark Knight Rises, your dreams may have just been dashed. However, a new dream may have arrived as its replacement: Joseph Gordin-Levitt as our new Batman. That’s right, boring cop John Blake may takeover as the cape crusader. This news comes as one of first pieces of casting rumors for the upcoming Justice League movie, and while we should never take those rumblings too seriously, Hitfix’s Drew McWeeny seems pretty confident in his exclusive.
McWeeny says, according to his sources, Levitt will “absolutely” be playing Batman in the Justice League picture. That’s not all, as Warners Bros. is apparently locking down deals not only with Levitt, but with one other actor from Nolan’s Batman universe. More than likely, it’s Lucius Fox providing the team with gadgetry and such or Alfred to help pick Blake up when he’s down.
I’m sure the news of Bruce Wayne no longer being the Batman will drive certain fans nuts (and, again, this is only a rumor), but if Warner Bros. wants a tonal and thematic tie to the world Nolan created, then keeping Levitt around is a really smart move. Plus, from a storytelling standpoint, it isn’t such a bad choice, since they already got most of Blake’s origin story out of the way.
Here’s the best part of all: we already know Levitt’s gruff voice from Looper, so if he plays Batman, expect a great Bruce Willis impersonation, which we might all hear sooner than 2015. One last time, this is all still speculative, but Warner Bros. may take a page from the Marvel playbook and have Blake make an appearance in next summer’s Man of Steel. Not a bad idea, considering they’re taking a lot from that playbook already.
Justice League is tentatively scheduled for summer 2015.