That didn't take long.
Variety have confirmed that
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing Alberto Falcone in
The Dark Knight Rises, the son of mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson in Batman Begins) a major character from Jeph Loebs The Long Halloween. The role most definitely positions Levitt as a villain and after the likely inclusion of Marion Cotillard as Talia, the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul, it certainly feels like Bruce Wayne's past is coming back to haunt him in the final part of this trilogy. We have to say
congrats to Comic Book Movie who had this rumour back in February and claimed that the new movie would find Falcone returning to Gotham to reclaim the city Batman helped take away from his father. Perhaps then he is the one who hires Bane (Tom Hardy) to do his bidding and interestingly in the Catwoman: When in Rome storyline, Selina Kyle believes she is the daughter of Carmine so there could be some brother/sister dynamic in development here. Certainly
Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt look similar enough to be related.
And will a return for the Falcone family bring with it a return of
Tom Wilkinson's Carmine? Last we saw him in Batman Begins he was going mad on some Scarecrow toxin... so clearly a return could easily be manufactured. As could
Eric Roberts as Salvatore Maroni who may well have survived that car crash caused by Two-Face in The Dark Knight. With Batman on the run... has a full on gangster war spilled on the streets of Gotham whilst The Caped Crusader is busy evading capture? So the outlook for July 20th, 2012 release of The Dark Knight Rises has become a little clearer this afternoon... but there's still plenty of jigsaw pieces yet to fall into place yet. Shaping up to be a fun ride, right?