Riddler Poll #1

Here's the first of many Riddler polls. I decided to make them smaller than the Catwoman polls, because although the field is a little smaller, there are two totally different ways to approach the Riddler. He could be completely manic, like Frank Gorshin and Jim Carrey played him, or a calculated intellectual (and coward) more like how he was portrayed in the animated series from the 1990s or recently in comics. So reducing the field reduces the chance that your favorite manic Riddler actor will be up against your favorite intelligent one. The entire field, with submissions from the comments recently added, is here, and here are the first contestants:

• Michael C. Hall
  You may know him from: Dexter, Six Feet Under
  
  His character on Dexter is a sociopath whose unnerving coldness while doing horrific things has earned him a lot of fans. That kind of thing could completely work for The Riddler.


• Denis Leary
  You may know him from: Stand-up comedy, Rescue Me, The Ref
  
  I forget where I saw it, but jotted his name down even though he's a terrible choice. I like him a lot as an actor, just not for this part at all.


• Daniel Day Lewis
  You may know him from: Gangs of New York, There Will Be Blood, My Left Foot, Last of the Mohicans In The Name Of The Father
  
  He is sometimes incredible, but sometimes overacts ridiculously, so much so that it won't even work in a comic book movie. Not that it matters, because I can't imagine him ever wanting to be in a Batman movie anyway.


• David Tennant (pictured)
  You may know him from: Dr. Who, and what looks like a bunch of other UK TV series
  
  I don't watch Dr. Who, so I'm not familiar with his work. He's a pretty popular choice among fans, though, and has expressed interest in the part. But from what I can tell, he almost certainly would go the Gorshin/Carrey route.


• Christopher Walken
  You may know him from: The Dead Zone, Saturday Night Live appearances, Pulp Fiction, too many other roles to list
  
  He's eccentric and can be unnerving when he's not playing it for laughs, but I can't imagine a Riddler who's pushing 70 years old.

The poll should be up within a minute, and will close in a week. Depending on my free time over the holidays, I may get another poll up next week, but it might be longer.

Casting the Riddler

A while back, I did a giant list of possible actresses for Catwoman, and a series of polls eventually leading to you guys picking Julianne Moore for the part. And a recent post on MTV's Spash Page reminded me that I've been meaning to do one for the Riddler for a long time.

So the first step is to hunt down every name I can find associated with the Riddler for a future Batman movie. Please remember that this is not a list of my suggestions, because I happen to think some of these are downright awful. And if there are any names you think should be on the list, let me know in the comments.

Updated the list with updates from the comments (though I trimmed some off of Commissioner Gordon's list at the bottom of this post because the polls would never end with that many actors, and, no offense, Harrison Ford would be awful):

Casey Affleck
Eric Bana
Paul Bettany
Steve Carell
Jim Carrey
Macaulay Culkin
Paul Dano
Willem Dafoe
Matt Damon
Jeremy Davies
Johnny Depp
Michael Emerson
Lee Evans
Michael Fassbender
James Franco
Brendan Fraser
Crispin Glover
Jeff Goldblum
Jake Gyllenhaal
Brian Austin Green
Jackie Earle Haley
Michael C. Hall
Neil Patrick Harris
Hugh Laurie
Jude Law
Denis Leary
Damian Lewis
Daniel Day Lewis
Vincent Kartheiser
Tobey Maguire
James McAvoy
Ewan McGregor
Viggo Mortensen
Eddie Murphy
Edward Norton
Jim Parsons
Guy Pearce
Sean Penn
Lance Reddick
Andy Serkis
Kevin Spacey
David Tennant
Christopher Walken
Elijah Wood

I'll try to put up a poll of the first set in about a week. And again, let me know if you have any other suggestions.

News & Notes

Pirate Batman (above) is among the odd things promised by Grant Morrison in next year's Return of Bruce Wayne, which will return the comic version of Batman from the "dead."

Morgan Freeman has a gut feeling that Christopher Nolan will be back for a third Batman film. And he thinks Catwoman should be involved.

Matt Damon was considered for the role of Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight. Scheduling conflicts made it a non-issue before there was any real discussion. It's interesting to think about, but as Damon points out, "Aaron [Eckhart] is a great actor, so the movie didn't suffer for it...."

And to link to MTV's Splash Page (a really good source for comic movie news) three times in a row, Danny De Vito looks back on making Batman Returns.

A robot dinosaur has been stolen from a museum in Mexico. Word on the street is that it was smuggled into some rich guy's basement.

And here's a great advertisement:

News & Notes

DC's Source blog has the details on upcoming original graphic novels that update the origins of Batman and Superman. Comics fans will find this to be familiar, since Marvel did it beginning in 2000 with their Ultimate line, which was a pretty cool idea and resulted in some quality comics for a while.

What's odd, though, is that Batman's origin isn't the least bit dated. Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Batman: Year One hasn't aged at all (with the small exception of Catwoman seeming pretty 80s (she reminds me of Joan Jett)). So I'm not entirely sure what the point of it all is, but the costume doesn't look half bad (though Bleeding Cool thinks it might be a ripoff), and Geoff Johns and Gary Frank is a solid creative team.

Elsewhere, one of the best Batman comic moments in a good while happened a few weeks ago in Detective Comics #859. The Weekly Crisis has some images (scroll about 1/3 of the way down).

And io9 talks about the philosophy of Batman and the Joker in an article that mostly went over my head.

News & Notes

Artist Vanja Mrgan has a series adding beards to pop culture heroes including, of course, Batman.

Topless Robot has a list of villains from the 60s Batman TV series that should be in comics (most of them really shouldn't, but it's an interesting list anyway).

And here's some emo versions of superheroes. The artist was selling prints, but Batman is long since sold out.

News & Notes

Jeff Yorkes made the above Mad Men/Batman mashup.

• It's rumored that Spider-man 4 may feature the Black Cat. Why does that matter? Black Cat is amazingly similar to Catwoman, so a studio may be reluctant to make a superhero movie with the same kind of villain. But I'd like to think that if Christopher Nolan and company had a good enough idea, it wouldn't matter.


• And speak of the devil, MTV had a Catwoman casting poll and Kate Beckinsale was the runaway winner.


• And here's a trailer for Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, another DC direct-to-DVD/BluRay animated movie. I didn't much like the last one (Superman/Batman: Public Enemies) but I'm a total sucker for these, so I'll definitely check out this one when it comes out (which won't be for a while):

News & Notes

Above, a clever fan-made Riddler poster from millarc (click the image for a larger version if you can't read it).

I was behind on my reading from having just moved, but MTV's Splash Page was super busy with Batman-related stuff over the past couple weeks. They held a poll on which villain should appear in Batman 3, and their readers chose the Riddler. And in an interview with Dane Cook, he said he wants to play the Riddler, which should never happen.

They suggested possible actresses for Catwoman, mostly including names I've mentioned here, but also throwing out Reiko Aylesworth, which is an odd choice. And now they're having a Catwoman casting poll which leaves out both oft-mentioned names (Marion Cotillard) and favorites from this site (Julianne Moore).

And they offered up a preview for the Batgirl #4 comic that comes out tomorrow. Batman fans may enjoy the mutants from The Dark Knight Returns on the cover.

News & Notes

Above, the Batman portion of a Dr. Seuss/Superhero mashup over on DeviantArt.

Some website that I forgot which one it was pointed to this design for a Batmobile by noted sci-fi/horror artist H.R. Giger which was intended for (but not used in) the 1994 film Batman Forever. That whole Batmobile history site is pretty awesome. Be careful, though, I've lost entire workdays browsing it.

And this has nothing to do with anything, really, but Isla Fisher is a lovely woman who dressed up as Catwoman for Halloween, so here's some pictures of that.

News & Notes

Most people reading this are probably really into Batman, and some may be really into Halloween, but I beg you: please do not do this to your dog.

In actual news: MTV talked to Willem Dafoe recently, and he said he was approached about playing Batman in the 1989 film that eventually starred Michael Keaton. That would've been... different.

And I don't normally link to such things, but apparently someone is making a pornographic movie that parodies the Adam West Batman TV series. The very adult website Fleshbot has a preview. It is nsfw, xxx, inappropriate for minors, etc. Don't click here if you're somewhere where genitals appearing on your screen will get you fired, expelled, dumped, divorced, excommunicated, shunned, or a negative consequence that I haven't anticipated.

News & Notes

Above, a pretty funny College Humor video (Update: which I now realize isn't displaying right, so watch it here). And more importantly, Cillian Murphy (Scarecrow) is working with Christopher Nolan on Inception, and tells MTV:

"I hope they make a third one," he told MTV News. "I think 'The Dark Knight' was one of the greatest films."

Just because he's hopeful, however, doesn't mean that Nolan has shared his intentions on the "Inception" set.

"We don’t talk about those things," Murphy explained "It's out of my control."

News & Notes

• A commenter pointed to this page which has the above image and a URL that claims to be part of viral marketing for Batman 3. It says its located at www.sharethemystery.com (at last check a yet-to-be-activated URL -- since I can't verify that it's not full of malware, I'm not going to link to it, proceed at your own risk). Anyway, The Dark Knight viral marketing like whysoserious.com was registered by proxy to keep production/marketing company names off of them, while this site is registered to some guy in New Jersey, so I say there's no chance it's legit.


• MTV's Splash Page says they are making a sequel to the Superman/Batman movie that came out on DVD/BluRay recently. I thought it was ok, but would rather see them do something else, even if not Batman-related. The New Frontier is the best of those they've done so far, and I think they should try something more along those lines again. More than just big name characters and big action sequences, try something that's got a little more meat to the story.


• And this comic today at amazingsuperpowers.com made me chuckle. Move your mouse to the area around the top right corner of the comic to reveal a question mark, which you can click for a bonus panel.

News & Notes

Topless Robot counts down the 6 best and worst vehicles in comics with two Batman-related entries.

The Joker Blogs is a fan video series about the Joker in Arkham Asylum after The Dark Knight. He doesn't have the voice quite right, but the guy who plays the Joker otherwise does an uncanny impression of Heath Ledger's Joker.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

Based on the comic by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness, the animated feature Superman/Batman: Public Enemies releases on DVD and Blu-Ray tomorrow. It looks pretty good, based on the trailer and some other footage they've released. I especially like that they're keeping the voices from the (excellent) cartoons from the 1990s.

To mark the occasion, IGN looks at the top team-ups and fights between Superman and Batman. Newsarama, meanwhile, talks to voice actors Kevin Conroy (Batman) and Clancy Brown (Lex Luthor).

News & Notes

Some news:

• Michael Caine talked to MTV and this time didn't put his foot in his mouth:
  

  "There is nobody, there's no script, there's nothing. It can't possibly be made before 2011 because 'Inception' is such a big picture."



• Legendary comics creators Neal Adams and Frank Miller are teaming up for a new series called Batman: Odyssey (pictured).


• DC will be featuring a Li'l Gotham series in the back of some upcoming comics.


• And for the first time ever, the New York Yankees did something that doesn't suck. As part of their annual rookie hazing, they forced first year players to dress up like Batman characters. Which isn't really so bad except for the poor guy in the Catwoman outfit.

News & Notes

A couple quick things:

• Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) will be playing a villain in the upcoming Jonah Hex movie, and will be using Frank Gorshin's Riddler from the '60s TV series as inspiration.


• Users are creating skins for (I think just the PC version of) the Arkham Asylum videogames, and there's a thread on their forum collecting some of the best, like the Batman Beyond version above by DarkKnight11.

News & Notes

Aaron Eckhart's promoting a new movie (Love Happens), and MTV asked him some Batman questions. He doesn't know anything about the future, really, but gives an interesting answer anyway:



Elsewhere, Topless Robot ranks the Joker's 10 craziest kills, and an Indianapolis Colts site previews the NFL season by comparing each team to a Batman character. At the risk of alienating some readers, I'm a Patriots fan, so I'd reverse their Colts and Pats comparisons, but otherwise it's pretty good.

Hollywood loves to jump on bandwagons, so after the success of The Dark Knight, there were quite a few darker takes on superheroes in the works. Io9 runs down the list of them, finding that they've all seemed to stall out, and takes a guess at why.

Batman Comics Update

A few items from Batman in the comics world, for anyone that cares:

• It hasn't been too long since Batman R.I.P., but Bleeding Cool has rumors of Bruce Wayne's return. I knew he wouldn't stay dead forever, but this seems pretty quick.


• The new Batgirl series started, and for anyone curious about her identity, you can find it here.


• The first arc of Batman and Robin wrapped up this week, and it was pretty darn good. I'm not a Grant Morrison fan, really, but but until the third issue, this was nothing but fun. It got a little Morrison-weird there at the end, with scenes ending so abruptly that I thought I was missing a page. But overall it was one of the best Batman stories in quite a while.

News & Notes

A quick update on the thing yesterday about Megan Fox, Aint It Cool News was nice enough to contact Megan Fox's people for comment:

Megan is a huge fan of the Batman movies and of director Christopher Nolan but these discussions have not taken place.

Wait, you mean the British tabloid was not carefully checking information from reliable sources to only print the truth? I'm shocked. Shocked! Also, it must be kind of awesome to be able to contact Megan Fox's people. Not as nice as contacting her directly, but still that's pretty cool.

News & Notes

Two rumors today, one hopefully true, one probably false.

• Batman 3 may be filmed entirely in IMAX, which would be pretty cool.


• And the Sun is claiming that Megan Fox has been cast as Catwoman. They're the same newspaper that brought us Eddie Murphy as the Riddler, Shia LaBeouf as Robin, and I think Cher as Catwoman, so I wouldn't count on this one being true either.

This is the teaser trailer for Inception, Christopher Nolan's next movie. It's hoped that once he's done with this one, it's on to another Batman movie, but who knows. There was talk for a while of him directing a movie adaptation of the 60s British TV series The Prisoner but he's apparently no longer involved, so my fingers are crossed.

News & Notes

The Batman 3 rumor mill came to a halt after Gary Oldman's surprising (and unconfirmed) announcement at the San Diego Comic Con that filming would begin next year. Well, there was word that Miley Cyrus wants to be Batgirl, but I can't see that happening.

But speaking of Batgirl, a new comic series is launching in a couple weeks. Teaser images, like the one above by Phil Noto are about all we know about the series, but it's generally assumed that Batgirl is neither Barbara Gordon nor Cassie Cain, so we'd be looking at a whole new Batgirl. Possible choices include former Robin Stephanie Brown/Spoiler, Misfit (who actually first appeared in a Batgirl costume), one-time wannabe Batgirl Helena Bertinelli/Huntress, or Squire, one of the sidekicks to the Batmen of All Nations.

It could also be Bette Kane, who many many years ago was "Bat-Girl", the sidekick to Batwoman. Those stories were written out of continuity, but Batwoman has recently been reintroduced, and is currently starring in the beautifully drawn pages of Detective Comics, so bringing back Bette Kane is not out of the realm of possibilities.

But none of these characters I mentioned, with the possible exception of Babs Gordon, will be appearing in a Batman movie any time soon, so this is only of interest to hard core Batman nerds, like me.

Batman 3 Filming Next Year?

I've been super lazy about updating lately, but with some actual news today, it seemed appropriate to get off my ass and update. Speaking at the annual gathering of nerds at the San Diego Comic Con, Gary Oldman, asked when the next Batman would be filming, said this:

The next batman is next year, so I think it is two years away. But you didn’t hear it from me.

Reports say he wasn't joking or anything, so maybe it's legit. With Christopher Nolan's current project, Inception, barely underway, it's possible Nolan may not be involved. Would you even want to see a third Batman film with another director? If so, who?

News & Notes

Above is smizzle's entry in a worth1000 photoshop contest to put superheroes in classic paintings. I'm catching up after being out of town for a while, here's a ton of links with almost no commentary since there's a lot of them.

• Suddenly, Christopher Nolan in Batman 3 is looking iffy. Which makes the m0vie blog wonder what would happen without Nolan. And Christian Bale wonders if Batman 3 will happen at all.


• Johnny Depp still seems receptive to the Riddler idea.


• Larry David probably won't be the Riddler


• Snubbing the Dark Knight in best picture last year has made the Oscars expand to 10 nominees, which seems like a bad idea.


• Fan Art Exhibit looks at The Dark Knight if the principal characters had been women: here, here, and here.


• Michelle Pfeiffer will give whip lessons to the next Catwoman actress.


• Vanessa Hudgens, a name that didn't come up in the series of Catwoman polls, is apparently a fan. I've never seen her in a movie though, so I don't know if that's a good idea, although she is quite attractive.


• Io9 runs down what's going on with Batman in the comics, and things have been generally pretty good after Battle for the Cowl, especially Batman & Robin.


• And finally, 1960s TV Batman Villains from A to Z:

News & Notes

• DC's source blog has another teaser image of the upcoming Batgirl series. Still no real clue as to who it is, but with them being careful not to show her face, there's a pretty good chance it's not Cassandra Cain.


• Topless Robot counts down the 9 best fan films ever with a few Batman entries.


• Eco-comics, which looks at the economics of superheroes and supervillains, discusses the value of Batman villains cooperating and whether the villains should betray each other. Lots of nerdy economics at both links, if that sort of thing appeals to you.


• MTV's splash page looks at HBO's promos for the Dark Knight.


• Robot6's "Send us your shelf porn" feature asks people to send in pictures of their shelves full of comic book stuff, and this most recent one has a pretty impressive Batman theme.


• And Eddie Murphy appeared on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien recently, and addressed those silly rumors from way back when about him playing the Riddler:

News & Notes

The new Batman & Robin #1 comic came out this week, and I thought it was pretty good. Here are some reviews (with spoilers): Robot 6 and Comics Should Be Good.

To mark the occasion of the new Batman and new Robin in this comic, Splash Page counts down their favorite alternate Batmen and their favorite Robins.

A while back I linked to this piece by a writer hoping that Bruce Wayne stays dead, but now there's a pro-Bruce counter argument up.

And finally an artist named Dean T. Frasier did a nifty Star Wars/Batman mashup, mostly in the style of the 90s Batman animated series. Here's Darth Bat, but check out the whole set:

News & Notes

Busy week at work for me, so I've been slow getting this out, but here's some news:

• Batman on Film has some Batman 3 stuff, it's mostly non-news, but they raise a decent point:
  

  at some point soon, Warner Bros. is going to have to publicly lay claim to Summer 2012 release date for BATMAN 3 -- the clock is ticking on that and the ticks are getting louder.

  
  Studios announce the opening dates for big summer movies years in advance so that they can lay claim to the big movie weekends (and typically they don't like to release two big movies at the same time, it would just cause both films to earn less at the box office). For a summer 2012 release, something would probably be announced by the end of this year.


• Unsurprisingly, Heath Ledger won the Best Villain award at the MTV movie awards.


• Bam Kapow lists Five Batman vs Joker stories you may have missed. I'm not a huge fan of any of these, probably Devil's Advocate would be my favorite of the three, just because it's a cool concept (Joker gets the death penalty, but for murders he didn't commit, so Batman's sense of justice forces him to prove Joker's innocence).


• This past week's Brave and the Bold cartoon was pretty excellent, with appearances from Bat-Mite, Ace the Bat-Hound, Catman, Calendar Man, Catwoman, Riddler, and many others. io9 has a nice review up.


• And as long as I'm linking there, io9 has a review of Battle for the Cowl and a piece hyping the new Batman & Robin comic, which comes out Wednesday.


• And finally, some French folks made a pretty impressive looking fan film (it's very R-rated, probably not work-safe). The film borrows the Sin City/Spirit look, and creates what can only be called an unusual take on Batman, as a sort of murderous avenging monstrous man. I didn't really care for it, but I really appreciate the effort that went into making it.

Catwoman Poll: Final Results

So the voting is through for all the Catwoman polls, and in spite of my doubts, the people have chosen Julianne Moore. With 28% of the vote, she won pretty handily, too. Charlize Theron (my personal favorite) was second, with 17%. Marion Cotillard and Rachel Weisz tied for third at 14%. Another surprise to me, Kate Beckinsale only got one vote.

So that does it for Catwoman for a while. Thanks for voting! I'll try to do another big poll for another character, but since there seem to be a lot more casting ideas for Catwoman than anyone else, the rest will be quite a bit smaller.

News & Notes

Batman: Battle for the Cowl wrapped up this past week in the comics, and most people (including me) were pretty unhappy with it. Here are some thoughts on it, plus some other random stuff:

• Comixology compares the recent-ish deaths of Batman and Captain America. The short version: one kinda sucked, one was great.


• And here's a list of 5 reasons why Battle for the Cowl was terrible.


• Comics Should Be Good is posting a "cool comic book moment" every day this year, and the other day it was from a Suicide Squad story featuring Batman, Amanda Waller, and a little bit of Deadshot.


• IGN interviews Grant Morrison (spoilers ahead, if you're planning on reading Battle for the Cowl) about his upcoming Batman & Robin series, featuring the new Batman and new Robin.


• Romow picks the top 5 Batman villians but somehow excludes Two-Face.


• And there's another one of these villain profiles for the Arkham Asylum video game, this one featuring a pants-less Poison Ivy:

The Catwoman poll is probably closed by the time you read this (1 hour to go as I'm typing) but check over to the right if you want to try to get a last minute vote in. Or to see the final results.

News & Notes

I've linked to it a couple times before, but wanderingbert's Batman Villain project is still going strong, recently adding the above Black Mask image. I've been slack about these lately, but here are some links:

• DC's' The Source blog has some previews of Mark Bagley's (Ultimate Spider-Man, Trinity) art on Batman.


• MTV's Splash Page looks at the Joker-themed picture from Eminem's new album.


• A crazy person over at Bam Kapow wishes Batman would stay dead.


• The Philadelphia Daily News looks at the recent introduction of Adam West Batman foe King Tut to the comics world.


• Here's a bunch of Joker pictures.


• And here's the trailer for the next direct-to-dvd animation project, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies:

Don't forget to vote in the Catwoman poll, it's very close so far.

Catwoman Poll: Final Round

So Kate Winslet wins the 8th round of polling in a squeaker over Gretchen Mol (you can see the full results at the bottom of the sidebar on the right). I doubt either of them win this final round. But here are your finalists, the winners of the first 8 rounds (including the two tied for first in poll #3) plus the top 2nd place finisher to make it an even 10:

Kate Beckinsale

Marion Cotillard

Megan Fox


Eva Green


Angelina Jolie


Michelle Monaghan


Julianne Moore


Charlize Theron



Rachel Weisz


Kate Winslet

So there you go, vote over to the right.

News & Notes

I've been slack about these lately, so here's a whole bunch of links:

• Christian Bale isn't saying anything about when Batman 3 will come out:
  

  I’ve learned that I do not answer that question until (director) Chris Nolan has answered that question.



• Pop counts down the 25 coolest villains in comics.


• IGN goes a little further, ranking the top 100 comic villains (warning: it's annoying to flip through them one at a time, and they haven't gotten to the top 20 yet).


• Kevin Smith will be making another Batman comic. I'm not sure this is good news, since I didn't like his Cacophony. MTV has some more details.


• Io9 and MTV both look at upcoming episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon.


• Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman costume from Batman Returns brought in over $8,000 at auction.


• Lunch Bag Art asks who would win in a fight: Batman or Darth Vader?


• The LA Times ranks The Top 10 vintage Batman toys.


• The Weekly Crisis discusses some "legacy" characters who have passed their titles to others, and have recently or may soon revert to the classic versions, including Batgirl.

And there's still time to vote in the last of the Catwoman polls, and sorry again for the lousy options in this one.

News & Notes

Some links:

• Every Day is like Wednesday apologizes for ignoring the Joker's Asylum book until now.


• Wine For Breakfast looks at some villains (and fan-made posters).


• MTV asked Sam Worthington about those rumors a while back that he was going to take over for his Terminator: Salvation co-star as Batman in the sequel to The Dark Knight.


• And DC is releasing some really weird looking superhero toys

Don't forget to vote in the Catwoman poll.

Catwoman Poll #8

So last week, Marion Cotillard finished first, as I expected, but Emily Blunt gave her a real challenge, finishing only one vote back. Also surprising to me, Ali Larter finished a close third. You can see the full results at the bottom of the sidebar to the right.

As I mentioned last week, this last week is pretty iffy. Mostly it's people I kept putting off because I didn't have much nice to say about them. I suspect that the winner of this poll might finish last in the final round (which will be next week). So here they are, the leftovers:

• Jennifer Aniston
  You might know her from: Ferris Beuller (the TV series), Leprechaun
  She's built for comedy, if that makes any sense. Her voice, being generally a great looking woman but having a slightly large nose (you can't really do comedy if you're flawlessly beautiful). She's tried drama sometimes, but I don't think people remember Derailed or the Good Girl all that fondly.



• Elizabeth Banks
  You might know her from: Spider-Man (JJJ's secretary), Invincible, Zack and Miri, Scrubs
  I love her in a lot of roles, I think she's a really gifted comedic actress, but in dramas she's just kind of another pretty face. Which is fine, I guess, but I'd hope for more from Catwoman.



• Rachel Blanchard
  You might know her from: Snakes on a Plane, 7th Heaven, Clueless (the TV series)
  She's a lovely girl, but totally wrong for Catwoman, IMO. She just seems... innocent isn't the word, but generally harmless.



• Claire Danes
  You might know her from: My So-Called Life, Terminator 3, Romeo+Juliet
  I once read a book by screenwriter William Goldman where he talks about seeing Robin Wright in the Princess Bride and becoming convinced she'd be the biggest star in the world. Shortly after, she was up for some big role that would have made her career, but she was pregnant and had to pass. Goldman wrote that Barbara Streisand never would've gotten pregnant. Not that there's anything wrong with it, just that you have to have a drive to be an A-list actor to become an A-list actor, and Robin Wright didn't seem to have it. Point being, Claire Danes seemed like she was going to be the actress of my generation around '96, but she did some smaller movies, an ill-advised Mod Squad movie, took some time off to go to college, and until Terminator 3 never seemed to make any effort to cultivate her celebrity. I don't think she was really that into being a huge star, T3 notwithstanding. I don't really see her as a Catwoman anyway, but I don't think it'd be something she'd be that interested in.



• Alexandra Maria Lara
  You might know her from: The Reader, maybe?
  I have no idea who this is. Looking at a few pictures, she wouldn't be high on my list.



• Gretchen Mol (pictured above)
  You might know her from: Rounders, Life on Mars (the US one), 3:10 to Yuma, The Thirteenth Floor
  She's been in a lot of movies I've seen, but is generally not memorable in them. I only really remember her in Rounders (which I've seen about a million times), and she wasn't that good in it. So I can't say she'd be very high on my list of potential Catwoman actors.



• Audrey Tautou
  You might know her from: Amelie, The Da Vinci Code
  I've only seen her in the one movie, but she seemed a little... delicate. Catwoman is not delicate. So unless my impression was wrong, she is not right for the part.



• Emma Thompson
  You might know her from: Shakespeare adaptations, that one Cheers episode where she played Nanny G, Howards End, Harry Potter movies
  Julianne Moore did pretty well in these polls despite being 50-ish, but Emma Thompson actually kinda looks 50-ish. Not that she's not great looking for 50, but even more so than Julianne Moore, I can't see her leaping from rooftop to rooftop or kicking Batman in the face.



• Kate Winslet
  You might know her from: Titanic, other stuff
  Great actress, not right for Catwoman. I never found her all that attractive, she doesn't really have an athletic body type, and she never really seemed like the type to be kinda evil and enjoy it.

Voting is already open on the sidebar to the right.

News & Notes

El Gato put together this Catwoman poster. Now here's some links:

• Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch discusses whether the Joker should be retired in movies.


• Using incredibly scientific formulas (you can see them here, there's nothing scientific about them), MTV ranks the "biggest" superheroes of all time, based almost entirely on movies (Hellboy and Blade appear on the list, while Green Lantern, Captain America, and Wonder Woman do not).

Don't forget to vote in the Catwoman poll over to the right.

News & Notes

KalMart put together this poster featuring Killer Croc, with an interesting casting choice of Nathan Jones (who you may remember as the really large guy from Troy).

Only one link today, and it's not much of one, but here's a list of the 10 best and worst dressed comic book characters (digg currently crushed the site, here's a mirror if it's still down). I always thought Carrie Kelly's Robin costume was nice, but her Catgirl one looked awful.

News & Notes

• DC posted the above image on their source blog prompting speculation over who it is. Cassandra Cain, is Barbara Gordon coming back, someone else?


• Suite101 has a list of the worst Batman villains.


• Voting is open for the MTV Movie awards through May 27th, and the Dark Knight is not surprisingly nominated in several categories.


• Living between Wednesdays looks at Wolverine as the center of the comic book hair continuum, but if you look closely at the chart, you'll see that Ra's al Ghul shows up on the chart a number of times.


• And this is a trailer for a fan-made CGI movie called Arkham, which is really well done:

Catwoman Poll #7

Everything was tightly packed last week, with 6 of 10 contestants getting between 2 and 5 votes. But Rachel Weisz was the clear winner, with 25% of the vote. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Uma Thurman tied for second with 15%. Last week's poll is on the bottom of the right sidebar. Now on to this week:

• Emily Blunt
  You might remember her from: The Devil Wears Prada, Charlie Wilson's War, Dan In Real Life
  She was long rumored for the part of the Black Widow in Iron Man II, but had to drop out due to a scheduling conflict. The Black Widow is a pretty Catwoman-like part, an ass-kicking, skin tight costume-wearing woman who may or may not be a villain, so I assume she can handle the role. But I've only seen her in one movie, Charlie Wilson's War, and I don't even remember her from it. So I can't say for sure that she'd be any good.


• Cher
  You might remember her from: Moonstruck, that Sonny & Cher variety show, some other movies
  This was the original stupid Catwoman rumor. Please don't vote for her.


• Jennifer Connelly
  You might remember her from: Hulk (the Eric Bana one), Labyrinth, Career Opporunities, A Beautiful Mind, House of Sand and Fog
  She's a fine actress and a lovely woman, but I wonder if the Hulk kinda turned her off superhero movies. It was kind of a mess, even though it had a lot of talent behind it, and I think that might make me afraid to try it again. Plus I don't recall her ever taking a kind of action-y role, where she'd be kicking ass and jumping from rooftop to rooftop.


• Marion Cotillard
  You might remember her from: La Vie En Rose, the Taxi series (French movies, not the 70s sitcom), the upcoming Public Enemies
  I have not seen her in a movie at all. She's a lovely woman and all, but I'm not sure. I doubt she'd be able to pass as an American, and I've seen some people flip out at the idea of making Selina Kyle French, but that wouldn't bother me. I'll be basing my opinion of her as Catwoman mostly on Public Enemies (which looks pretty cool).


• Melissa George
  You might remember her from: Some middle seasons of Alias, The Amityville Horror, 30 Days of Night
  I like her as an actress, and I think she's quite attractive, but I can't imagine her as either Catwoman or Selina Kyle. She just doesn't seem quite right.


• Maggie Gyllenhaal
  You might remember her from: The Dark Knight, I'd hope.
  The plot of the Dark Knight would make this kinda silly, but that was a rumor floating around for a while.


• Tricia Helfer
  You might remember her from: Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice
  She's quite beautiful, but I don't quite see it. Loved her on Battlestar, but she's not very Catwomanish to me.


• Ali Larter
  You might remember her from: Heroes, Final Destination, Varsity Blues
  She's nice to look at, and maybe it's just that I don't like her character(s) on Heroes, but I don't want her anywhere near a Batman movie.


• Rhona Mitra (pictured above)
  You might remember her from: Being the original Lara Croft model, The Practice/Boston Legal, Nip/Tuck, Skinwalkers
  She'd make a great B-movie Catwoman, but she's not the kind of actress who can hang with Christian Bale and Gary Oldman and the like.


• Marley Shelton
  You might remember her from: A bunch of familiar movies on her imdb page, but the only one I actually remember her from is Grindhouse (she was the doctor lady with the series of colored needles)
  She didn't really stand out in any other part in my mind, so I can't imagine I'd really love her as Catoman.

Voting's open over to the right. Only one more group of actresses after this one (which will be pretty weak, just sorta "who's left over," sorry in advance), but vote away on this one.

News & Notes

• Adam West did the above video for Funny or Die. It gets a little tired after the first minute and then spirals into what I assume is product placement, but there's not much news lately.


• Cracked lists 6 famous characters that were rip-offs. The evidence is debatable in most cases, especially with a loaded term like "rip-off," but it's interesting to look at some similarities and/or coincidences.
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• CHUD looks at "Kick-Ass Cartoon Chicks", with a whole section on the Batman Animated series. In listing the female-centric parts of the show, they left out the Gotham Girls flash series, which is somehow still online.

The latest Catwoman poll is closed, but I don't really have time to get up a new one today, but expect it on Monday.

News & Notes

Robot 6 points to the above t-shirt.

• Christian Bale is contractually obligated to make Batman 3, but Christopher Nolan isn't, so Bale says "I’m in a bit of a fix if he says he doesn’t want to!" There's more here.


• Five-o-Rama lists the Five Lamest Batman villains, but clearly they never heard of the Snowman and his disturbing origin story.


• Io9 lists the Top 10 Mentally Ill Superheroes

Still time left to vote on the Catwoman poll over there to the right.