Over the last couple of days a rumor as hit the web with a huge force, that is being Joseph Gordon-Levitt may be playing John Blake/Batman in the upcoming Justice League movie. The info first came from HitFix’s Drew McWeeny, who claims to have gotten word from inside sources.
The rumor itself indicated that initially when Gordon-Levitt’s casting came about and the speculation about his TDKR character John Blake went rampent, (the rumor being that his character was that he was Dick Grayson Aka Robin/Nightwing and he was to take over the franchise), the studio seemingly made a plan, watched how people took the character, and that plan eventually turned more solid once the big reveal was actually more widely accepted.
The news itself doesn’t actually come as a shock, while most accepted the idea of the inevitable reboot of the franchise after the departure of Nolan, TDKR did set up Gordon-Levitt’s character, John Blake, as the successor to Bruce Wayne/Batman.
However, the larger surprise of this entire rumor was how soon we may get to see Gordon-Levitt reprise his characters role, even as Batman. In that same report from HitFix, it also reported that Gordon-Levitt could play the character well before 2015′s Justice League, perhaps even in a cameo form for Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel next summer, which could also be part of the reason why Snyder has been so hush hush lately about anything regarding cameos, future plans, or a Justice League tie in.
While speculation went rampant for a couple of days, Levitt’s representatives shot down the rumor through a report made by Hollywood.com that the story is completely untrue, which led many to believe the source of the rumor was intended to actually spike interest in The Dark Knight Rises DVD/Blu-Ray release next week.
But it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a rumor like this one would be denied upfront, then later down the line proved to be completely accurate (look at about 90% of the rumors that surrounded the production of The Dark Knight Rises). So many are just chalking it off as a simple form of misdirection.
But would it be a bad idea to go this route? I certainly don’t think so, and here is why.
Growing up, Batman has always been Bruce Wayne. No doubt about it, even when I was younger and Bruce Wayne was MIA in the comics and John Paul Valley/Azrael was wearing the Batsuit, I always considered this to be a temporary thing until Bruce Wayne came back into play.
Why cant it be like this?
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