Five long years ago Batman Begins rocked our world with Christian Bale’s rasping and glowing red eyes. The rasping has since been implemented by Adrian Brody in Predators (cos tough guys rrrrassp) and the demonic eyes have inspired some nice sculpting. In 2008, The Dark Knight advanced the real-life mythos of Batman by introducing the Joker and Harvey Dent/Two-Face.

2012 will see the next chapter of the saga – The Dark Knight Rises. Nothing is certain yet though, except that the Riddler and Mr. Freeze are off the baddie roster. With Batman & Robin’s awful, awful Mr. Freeze puns delivered in Arnie’s inimitable way, this just might be a good thing. Which puns? These:

Mr. Freeze: You’re not sending ME to the COOLER!

Mr. Freeze: Mercy? I’m afraid my condition has left me cold to your pleas of mercy.

Mr. Freeze: Tonight, hell freezes over!

Mr. Freeze: Ice to see you!

Enough, can’t take it. If you wish to see more quotable goodness for your Friday night flings, let the almighty IMDB help.

Nonetheless, everyone’s still tight-lipped, and knowing Nolan’s swift shooting schedules, it is unlikely that any rumours find their way out unintentionally. Even the name bears close resemblance to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, it is doubtful that we’ll see a retirement-ending Batman, or Superman for that matter.

Even though it comes as no surprise, we’re getting Avatar 2 and 3. Cameron intends to shoot both films back-to-back (thank you Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings trilogy fro bringing this trust to the decision-makers of multi-million dollar corporations) for 2014 and 2015 releases respectively. Unlike Nolan, who has persuaded the production company to keep The Dark Knight Rises as more traditional 2D, the return to Pandora will take place in a very 3D form.

The rum-soaked lot of Pirates of the Caribbean will be returning On Stranger Tides (based, possibly, on the book of the same name – not a bad read) in May 2011. Nothing spectacularly newsworthy about that, but have a look at what Geoffrey Rush, Captain/Commodore/Undead Barbossa himself has to say on the topic:

In a bit of slightly more surprising news, Robert Rodriguez is apparently of Deadpool. Huh. If the film is as nuts as the comic, no wonder that it continues with its on-off-on-off-on-maybe? fashion of lingering in development hell.

But! Deadpool may have found its helmer as brilliantly crazy as the character itself in the form Adam Berg, a Swedish commercial and video director. His commercial for Philips Electronics, titled Carousel, won the 2009 Cannes Film Lion Grand Prix (the Oscar for the best film in the advertising world). Featuring a nifty tracking shot, the ad lasts for two minutes and 19 seconds. I wanted him to direct the film after 15 seconds.

All this begs the question: What do you guys think? About or, all any, of this?