14 DAY TRIAL // The third Batman film with Christian Bale, “The Dark Knight Rises,” is currently in pre-production, with Chris Nolan at the helm. In recent interviews, Bale has made it a point of stressing Nolan’s previous statement that there won’t be a fourth installment.
As we also noted earlier this year, Nolan said the third film completed the story he wanted to tell, therefore saw no reason to bring back the character for a fourth installment.
Bale confirms this in some of his recent interviews, done to promote “The Fighter,” AceShowbiz reports. Fans shouldn’t be upset though – the actor promises the best final ride imaginable with “The Dark Knight Rises.”
“The thing is that this will be, I believe, unless Chris says different, this will be the last time I’m playing Batman,” Bale says for E! Online, as cited by the aforementioned e-zine.
In a separate interview, the actor said he was “very excited” about the upcoming project because, “if Chris maintains, this will be the last one.” He added: “We’ve got to up it.”
However, he wouldn’t say how they plan to do that for a very simple reason: not even Bale knows what will happen in the third film. So much for those hoping to get confirmation of Tom Hardy’s involvement in the franchise.
“Chris will let me know what I need to know when I need to know it. I probably know a little bit more than some other people out there, but I think most people would be surprised at how little I do know,” the actor says.
When the time comes, Bale too will be brought into the loop but, right now, he doesn’t know all that much yet.
“It just hasn’t been necessary yet. I know he’ll give me plenty of time to prepare for whatever I need to, and I’ll discover it. He’s a pretty damn good filmmaker. I trust that he’s going to come up with something wonderful,” Bale adds.