by Tom Comi
Rumors about whom director Christopher Nolan would pick to play the villains in the highly-anticipated The Dark Knight Rises have been surfacing for some time, and there was nary a star in Hollywood not named Mel Gibson or Lindsay Lohan whose name wasn’t whispered about at one time or another.
Warner Bros. finally put everybody out of their misery this week by confirming that Anne Hathaway has been tabbed to play Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) and that Inception star Tom Hardy will play Bane (one of Batman’s most powerful enemies).
Although many actresses have been mentioned for the Selina role, Hathaway reportedly beat out Jessica Biel and Keira Knightly for the coveted part. And it’s hard to argue with the decision. Hathaway has been on a roll lately, whether it’s been on the large screen (Rachel Getting Married, The Devil Wears Prada), the small screen (Saturday Night Live) or hosting next month’s Academy Awards. And I do have to admit that potentially seeing Hathaway in a cat outfit surely can’t be deemed a negative.
The challenge for Nolan will be getting performances out of Hathaway and Hardy that don’t play to the stereotypes of films made prior to him taking over the franchise (Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze or Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy). While nobody expects the newcomers to match the tour-de-force, Oscar-winning performance of the late Heath Ledger, all eyes will be on both actors to add another dimension to their respective characters.
The film isn’t expected to hit theaters until June 2012, but this news has us going batsh-it enough to hold us over for quite a while. Now if we could only get Nolan to hire Geoffrey Rush’s character from The King’s Speech to rid Christian Bale of that annoying lisp he employs when playing the Caped Crusader. Wishful thinking, right?
