Well, that was fun while it lasted. Kind of. Yesterday, the interwebs threw the rumor signal into the sky as Hitfix claimed with "absolute certainty" that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be the new Batman in "Justice League." But 24 hours later, that word hasn't panned out.
Hollywood.com chased down the actor's reps who "have refuted the rumor entirely." Now, some people are going to say that of course nothing is going to be confirmed until Warner Bros. is good and ready to make an announcement. But really, this didn't make much sense to begin with. "The Dark Knight Rises" makes it clear that JGL is Robin, so turning him into Batman seemed a bit…odd (though yes, the end of 'Rises' does suggest he steps in to replace Bruce Wayne in fighting crime).
Moreover, if Warner Bros. wanted to piss off Christopher Nolan, this would be a good way to do it. As we said yesterday, the director has gone out of his way to keep his Batman films self contained and outside of any other DC Comics franchise. So it seemed a bit bizarre that Warners would tie a very loose thread between "The Dark Knight Rises" and "Justice League" for no other reason than because they can.
We think the smart money is on Warner Bros. using "Justice League" to launch Batman (and all those other heroes) all over again, instead of trying to hang on to the success of Nolan's closed trilogy. Now, could the studio have talked about it? Sure. They'd probably love to continue the Nolan movies if they could, but he has pretty much moved on. Could we see a tie between "Man Of Steel" and "Justice League"? That is certainly way more plausible and makes a lot more sense.
Anyway, one rumor down, but we're sure another will crop up soon enough to get us all speculating once again. [via Total Film]