Is Heath Ledger Joker Material?

The big question is who will play The Joker. Latino Review, the site that foretold Brandon Routh's casting as Superman in "Superman Returns," has claimed that a trustworthy source tipped them that the part of The Joker in the sequel to last year's "Batman Begins" has been offered to Heath Ledger. The Sydney Morning Herald observed that the 27-year-old Australian actor seems oddly mismatched to the role if this lead turns out to be as credible as it was in the case of "Superman." The biggest moment of Ledger's career was the groundbreaking Ang Lee movie "Brokeback Mountain" with Jake Gyllenhaal in which Ledger played a gay cowboy and his performance earned him a nomination for an Academy Award.

Ledger's acting may still be questioned by some who remember "A Knight's Tale" and "Casanova" and might like to forget them, but his most notable roles before "Brokeback" were in the Shakespearean teen flick "10 Things I Hate About You" and his breakout debut opposite Mel Gibson in "The Patriot." However, Nolan's cast performed impeccably in their parts in the first film, so regardless of how unlikely a Joker he may appear, since Ledger can obviously act and Nolan has proved that knows what he's doing with "Batman," I'm inclined to trust the filmmakers on this one. Then again, this may be just another possibility that goes nowhere. But, if it isn't, that might just make the Joker's part in the next film all the more enigmatic and promising especially having witnessed how Nolan successfully breathed to life and reinvented Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul in the first movie.