UPDATE: This report has since been called into question by Entertainment Weekly, for more on that click here.
Variety has updated their earlier article and revealed Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s role in The Dark Knight Rises will be as Alberto Falcone, the son of Mafia chieftain Carmine Falcone, the character Tom Wilkinson played in Batman Begins.
Alberto Falcone, also known as the serial killer the Holiday Killer, is said to be based on Fredo Corleone of the Godfather series and was featured in the Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale comic book series’ “Batman: The Long Halloween” and “Batman: Dark Victory”.
This news meshes with a previous quote from Gary Oldman talking about the story saying, “It’s the scope of it and the way [Christopher Nolan] sort of brings it back to Batman Begins. And really what Bruce Wayne discovers about himself and what he learns about himself by the end of this one.”
Cinematographer Wally Pfister (Inception, The Dark Knight) made a similar statement previously saying:
“[Chris Nolan] actually had me go back and wanted me to watch, in IMAX, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight again. When I watched those I had read the script for The Dark Knight Rises and was like, ‘dude, it is a perfect trilogy.’ I think that was his intent, to work off those two pictures — and they are very different pictures. And it’s funny, we all had different opinions about which picture we like better.â€
The Dark Knight Rises is slated to hit theaters on July 20, 2012 with Christian Bale returning along with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman. Tom Hardy will play the film’s lead villain Bane and Anne Hathaway will play Selina Kyle. Shooting is expected to take place in London and Los Angeles in May.
