14 Cinematic Questions We Demand To Have Answered in 2013
9. Will Batman Appear In Man Of Steel?
According to both SlashFilm and HitFix, the possibility of Joseph Gordon-Levitt pulling on the Dark Knight's cowl for a DC Universe establishing cameo in Man Of Steel is a very real one. Despite denials from JGL's camp, Christopher Nolan apparently added fuel to the fire recently by refusing to deny that the Dark Knight Rises would appear.
The story came from the idea that JGL would appear in Man Of Steel in order to set up a wider DC Universe, of which both Nolan's Batverse, and the Man of Steel world were parts, and Nolan's comments came when he spoke to Movieline caught up with Nolan at an event in New York, who asked out-right whether anyone - including JGL - would appear as Batman in Man Of Steel. Quite typically, Nolan's smiling, evasive response was fuel for the fans:
I cant talk about that. You know that."
Of course Nolan likes to play with interviewers and fan expectations - he does it every time - but this would all fit with the suggestion that the Dark Knight Rise's end was in fact a new beginning for the Batman character, and the ridiculous notion that Warners would simply allow a potentially lucrative narrative strand to die off with no exploration. They might position themselves as comic book fans, but they're a business first and foremost, and the succession tease is too bountiful to not expand on in some way.