As confirmed by Warner Bros. today, it looks like we have our “villains” for The Dark Knight Rises. Anne Hathaway will be taking over the role of Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (Batman’s on-again off-again villainous love interest) in a role I would assume no one saw coming, and Tom Hardy will be playing Bane. Nolan will be directing the film from a screeplay he co-wrote with his brother Jonathan, based on a story he co-wrote with David S. Goyer.
This is honestly pretty surprising news. Hardy as Bane is fairly unexpected, considering the size differences, but Nolan promises a new interpretation of the man that broke the bat, and I suppose given the ending of the last movie Knightfall could be a substantial influence on this film (although I doubt we’ll see Batman’s back broken). The even more surprising bit of news is Hathaway as Kyle. Not that it’s so surprising to see Catwoman make an appearance, but rather to see that it’ll be played by Hathaway and not one of the millions of other actresses reportedly in the running for a role in his film at one time or another as well as Nolan’s penchant for using actors he’s familiar with already (see: Hardy). Hathaway had also been in the running for Spider-Man 4 back when it was reported the villain was the Vulture and she was his daughter.
Heck, we at Multiversity had even cast Olivia Wilde as Catwoman in an old Casting Couch, as well as giving Hardy the role of Deadshot – but hey, whatever floats Nolan’s boat!
The film is currently slated for July 20th, 2012, with filming currently happening in New Orleans.
