More news on The Dark Knight Rises – the updates just won’t stop! As it turns out, casting is not yet complete, despite the fact that filming has already begun. Specifically, news of three new cast members has just surfaced, though their roles haven’t yet been revealed, once again leaving us fans to speculation.
The new cast members, according to Variety, are Matthew Modine, Tom Conti, and Joey King.
 |
| From left to right: Matthew Modine, Tom Conti, and Joey King. |
Matthew Modine, best known as Private Joker from Full Metal Jacket (heh Joker… ahem…) is apparently slated to play a character by the name of “Nixon”. Um… Not a lot to go by, there. For what it’s worth, though, it sounds like his character is a Nolan original. I certainly don’t remember anyone named Nixon being in the Batman comics, but then again, I could be overlooking someone. Really all the name brings to mind for me is Richard Nixon, but this is Batman, not Watchmen, so yeah… I got nothing.
Tom Conti (I’m not familiar with him, but apparently he was in The Tempest, which I intend to watch at some point) is up for an unknown role, and I don’t really have any good guesses as to what it could be. In all likeliness, though, his role won’t be all that important, so I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
Then there’s Joey King, a child actress most recently featured in Ramona and Beezus. No official word yet on who she’ll be playing, but I actually have some guesses on this one. One theory is that she’ll be playing a young Talia al Ghul. If Talia really is to be included in the film (and if Josh Pence really is playing a young Ra’s al Ghul), then this seems fairly probable. Another far less likely theory is that she’ll be playing Carrie Kelley, aka the female Robin from The Dark Knight Returns comic. This one seems… highly unlikely at best. Robin (in any form or gender) just doesn’t seem like a character that has a place in Nolan’s Batman universe, and I would be absolutely shocked if this ends up being correct. My favorite theory on King’s role is that she’ll be playing Barbara Gordon. I’ve always liked Barbara, and I’d love to see TDKR feature a nod to her becoming Batgirl.
 |
| Will Joey King play a young version of Talia al Ghul or Barbara Gordon, or Carrie Kelley, a female version of Robin? |
In related TDKR news, there’s a new rumor (spread via IMDB) that the first teaser for The Dark Knight Rises will be attached to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Hopefully this is true, although IMDB is far from reliable when it comes to news on upcoming films. Still, it would be fairly logical to attach the teaser to something as popular as Harry Potter, so who knows…
