What a lousy day to be a Batman fan

First it was the news that Frank Miller is making ANOTHER sequel to his legendary graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns.

And now tonight it's this: the first look at Jared Leto as the Joker in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie:

Disney shareholders, be of good cheer.  Your Marvel Cinematic Universe need not fear any competition from DC.

Romero.  Nicholson.  Hamill.  Ledger.  Leto.  One of these is not like the others.  One of these just doesn't belong...

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Trailer for THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, PART 1

Yeah, I've seen The Dark Knight Rises. I'm still mulling it over but increasingly it's becoming a movie that I like the more that I think about it. Will try to post a review soon (something which I never got around to doing with The Dark Knight).

But while we're on the subject of Batman, here's the just-released trailer for DC Animated's The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, due out on Blu-ray and DVD on September 25th. And it looks to be a spot-on perfect adaptation of the revered graphic novel by Frank Miller!

This is the first time I'm hearing Peter Weller as Bruce Wayne/Batman since his casting was announced. Part of me is always going to be hearing Clint Eastwood's voice (especially during the book's later scenes when Batman is on horseback) but Weller's is just fine.

Batman shooting at young people: makes ya glad that Warner Bros. learned something from that fiasco with Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, huh?

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Animated THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. 'Nuff said...

What is regarded by many as the greatest Batman story ever told may be getting the DC animated treatment very soon...

Entertainment website Bleeding Cool is reported that The Dark Knight Returns is being adapted by the same team that worked on All Star Superman and the upcoming animated rendition of Batman: Year One.

Hailed as the defining treatment of Batman for the modern era, Frank Miller and Klaus Janson's The Dark Knight Returns is as bold and striking today as it was when it first hit comic book stores in 1986. The tale of Bruce Wayne - now 55-years old and having stopped being Batman ten years earlier - having the ultimate mid-life crisis and coming out of retirement into a world indifferent and even hostile to justice, not only broke new ground: it put Batman back on track to where he was perhaps always supposed to be.

I first read The Dark Knight Returns in the summer of 1989 (the summer of everything Batman) and ever since, I've been dreaming of a full-length feature adaptation of this story. Here's hoping that Warner Bros. won't be timid and will allow this film to have the hard "R" rating that it deserves. Yeah Warners, don't skimp on anything. Not even Bruno's exposed and swastika-tattooed breasts and buttocks (something that Batman creator Bob Kane confessed being mystified about). And however much money it takes, bring on Clint Eastwood to voice Batman!

Between that and nice long sequences of the scenes where Batman and his retinue are on horseback, this is already set to be animated glory.

(And hey, nice to have some good Batman news hot on the heels of those horrid costumes from the Batman Live show :-P)

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Clint Eastwood as Batman... in a movie version of THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS?!

It nearly happened, folks! While talking about their new movie The Book of Eli with MTV News, Albert and Allen Hughes revealed that years ago Warner Bros. offered them the chance to direct a film adaptation of Frank Miller's acclaimed graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns: the work most often praised for establishing the modern, grim take on Batman.

In case you've never treated yourself to it, The Dark Knight Returns depicts a 55-year old decrepit Bruce Wayne, ten years past his prime, taking up the cowl once again to fight crime in Gotham City.

And the Hughes Brothers' choice to play the older, "decrepit" Batman? It would have been Clint Eastwood.

I think everyone who's read The Dark Knight Returns has at one point or another envisioned Eastwood playing Batman. Especially with the latter part of the book when Batman and his retinue are on horseback, riding hard through the streets of Gotham: now sitting dark and helpless following the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear weapon knocking out all the electrical power.

And from the sound of it, we almost got it! Just... wow.

Personally, as much as I would enjoy seeing The Dark Knight Returns get the big screen treatment, I'd much more love to see somebody take up the challenge of adapting Kingdom Come (and I'm thinking animated particularly). That is hands-down my favorite version of Batman ever.

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