Chris Nolan has already told us newly-cast
Tom Hardy won't be Mr. Freeze or The Riddler in
The Dark Knight Rises (as they aren't in the film) and today we can scratch another well known Batman villain firmly off the potential candidates list for who the Inception actor might portray. Jett at
Batman on Film has heard via a 'very solid source' that Tom Hardy will NOT be playing Dr. Hugo Strange when filming kicks off on the third installment early next summer. I know Jett (aka Bill Ramey) and have emailed him a dozen times over the years and if he believes his source to be true, that's as good a confirmation as you are likely to get from anywhere. To be clear, this doesn't mean Strange won't be in the film, it just means Hardy won't be playing him. If the 'on paper' seemingly logical guess that the new film will be
based on Doug Moench's classic story 'Prey', where an ambitious, loose-cannon, overly thuggish young cop known as
Sgt. Max Cort (who has the bug up his ass about Batman) is hired by the Mayor of Gotham as part of a new unit to take down the Caped Crusader, which is subtly being sabotaged by Gordon (who in the film, would know the truth about Dent killing the cops) is correct... then as I've said before, they would find no-one better than Hardy to play that role. Cort could easily be transformed into a Melvin Purvis/
Public Enemies-esque cop chasing the heels of Batman and quickly gaining the trust of the Gotham Police Force over Gordon. Using Cort (or Harvey Bullock or a fictional name) would work handsomely in a Nolan universe. And if that storyline is being loosely adapted and if Hugo Strange is in the film, then my vision for the character has always been someone who is at least 15 years older than Batman. I would love to see
Ben Kingsley play him, even at 66 he is an incredibly fit man and can pass for a guy of 50.
But if it's not Cort, we mentioned in our '
8 Picks For Who Tom Hardy Might Play in The Dark Knight Rises' that The Penguin, Hush and Black Mask were other potential candidates if Nolan was looking at the DC Comics Archive. Would Hardy as any of them, get you excited? For me, he could play Selina Kyle and get away with it. Hardy is that damn good! Meanwhile,
Batman on Film have also heard that The Dark Knight Rises will film in the
U.K., Los Angeles, Detroit, and another country - perhaps even something in
New York. The source hadn't heard anything about
Chicago but that he would be 'shocked' if some filming didn't take place there as obviously it's the home of Nolan's Gotham. We also know of course Nolan is busy
scouting locations in Asia.