Many months ago when Joseph Gordon Levitt was first cast in The Dark Knight Rises we speculated on what his role would be and whether he would be playing The Dark Knight’s spectacular sidekick Robin or perhaps even better Nightwing.
Rumors ran rampant on the internet and Christopher Nolan was quick to crush the idea but now the internet is once again a buzz with some pretty solid clues to the fact that Joseph Gordon Levitt is going to play much more then the character we are led to believe.
The original reason that we suspected that Joseph would be playing Night Wing is because he is an up and coming star with too much name value and talent to be regulated to playing a small bit cop role. As for why we figured Night Wing and not Robin that was simply because Robin is a bit more sugar coated where as Night Wing fits nicely into the tone for the Dark Knight that Christopher Nolan has developed.
The official role that Joseph Gordon Levitt plays in The Dark Knight Rises is that of special duty beat cop John Blake who answers directly to the Commissioner and in turn helps Batman.
When I first speculated that Joseph would be playing much more than a small cop role I based it off the simple idea that Warner Brothers needed a launching point for a new franchise when Christopher Nolan finishes his. There is no way that the studio will allow the Batman film franchise to end after The Dark Knight Rises and with Christopher Nolan adamant he will not return the studio needs a take off point.
Warner Brothers will be hard pressed to top the job that Christian Bale has done as Batman and the easiest launch forward would be an origins story with Batman taking a secondary role in the story. The last thing they want to do is what is happening with Spiderman where they remade it to quickly and we are all comparing Andrew Garfield to Tobey Maquire. Who would possibly play Batman to the level that Christian Bale did? It will end up being just like when Michael Keaton was replaced in the original Batman by Val Kilmer and people were literally screaming at the screen ‘not the real batman’ throughout thefilm.
Joseph Gordon Levitt as Nightwing would introduce a strong new character that would give Warner Brother’s a place to take the Batman franchise after Nolan. We have no idea what Nolan will do with Batman in this movie but we do know that BANE broke the bat and perhaps this story ends with Batman broken and a new hero stepping up… ala Night Wing. As much as Nolan tells us there is no Robin / Nightwing in his story do we really expect him to give away such a massive plot twist?
At this point you should all be asking what proof is there that Joseph is playing anything more than a beat cop that answers to Commissioner Gordon? Speculating and wanting it to be true do not make it so but thanks to Forbes Writer Mark Hughes we have the first proof that our early hunches were right.
Mark has apparently seen footage we have not and perhaps has seen the entire film but the key item that he has seen is the fact that in the film Joseph’s character goes around town drawing with chalk and what he is drawing isn’t smiley faces. He is drawing the following;
Is it the bat symbol? What if you flip it upside down? you get the following; Does it look like the bat symbol or does it look like a bird and a certain iconic side kicks logo?
Is Christopher Nolan giving a nod to Robin / Night Wing as he leaves the franchise or is he leaving the door open for Warner Brothers to focus on a Dick Grayson origins story? As was pointed out by one of our readers ‘Ebhaugen02′ in the comments below The Dark Knight rises is set 8 years after the film and he claims its a child drawing the bat like figures with chalk not Joseph Gordon Levitt.
So it could very well be that the Forbes writer is desperately stretching and their is no connection at all but rather its just a child drawing in crayon about a hero of the past similar to how we as kids would.
In an ideal world I would love to see the plot show that Bane was working on behalf of Talia Al Ghul and that as depicted in the trailers Bane breaks the Bat who overcomes with the help of Catwoman, and John and then retires to pass off the mantle.
The big secondary question in all of this which Luke my fellow blogger and I were discussing this morning is what part does Marion Cotillard play in the film? She has been left out of most the marketing materials and early rumors did have her pegged to play Talia. Officially Marion Cotillard will play Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father’s philanthropic endeavors for Gotham.
Share your thoughts and what arc you think Dark Knight Rises will take. Please refrain from 2 year old comments and instead opt for a mature discussion
