The 'Brokeback Mountain' star has been offered the part of the Joker, sources from the movie industry report. It all went down last week, but the actor hasn't given a positive answer yet.

Oscar winner Robin Williams is said to want the same part 'desperately', along with 'The Da Vinci Code' leading man, Paul Bettany. And Heath came and just took it away without even trying too hard.

Actually, it wasn't a choice that he made, as the Batman-on-Film.com site is claiming, but he was hand picked by the producers themselves. His age, closer to Christian Bale's (32) than that of the other candidates, was also taken into consideration.

'The direction of the film expect the Joker to be very creepy and very extreme. Heath Ledger is perfect for the role as he has never played this kind of part before, which is what Nolan was after. Think about it - if you see Sam Rockwell or Robin Williams [...] you'd know exactly how they would play the role before even seeing the film and that's not very intriguing for fans, is it?', a statement posted yesterday said.

Whether Ledger will accept to play the part for which so many actors rooted is yet uncertain. But sources from the inside say that Joker won't be the only villain in the movie and that the character appears only halfway through the film. He is also to have a story of his own and the interpretation will be completely different from the one Jack Nicholson gave in 1989.