The Dark Knight
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Release date: July 18, 2008

The Plot: Now that he's begun, Batman continues to patrol the rooftops of Gotham City looking to take down its criminal underworld. With loyal partner Lt. Jim Gordon (Oldman) and new, firebrand District Attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart), the caped crusader's job seems to be getting easier. That is, until he meets a dangerous psychotic named The Joker (Ledger).

The Pros: Director Nolan has established a credible, flesh-and-blood Batman world, and Bale is by far the best man to wear the cape yet. Early buzz says that Ledger's Joker will be utterly terrifying (as he should be). Nolan also continues the tradition of casting well (Gyllenhaal is a step up from the original's weak link, Katie Holmes).

The Cons: Too much, too soon? The older Batman films suffered from villain overload, will this one? In addition to the Joker, the introduction of Dent signals the eventual emergence of Two-Face —' and on-set spies have claimed to have seen Batman Begins's Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) lurking about.

Cheat Sheet:

• Nolan usually draws on several sources for inspiration (Batman Begins culled heavily from Frank Miller's Batman: Year One and Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's Batman: The Long Halloween among others), and he has acknowledged that Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's Batman: The Killing Joke (considered the definitive Joker story) was a big influence on Dark Knight.
• Dropping "Batman" from the movie's title altogether seems to have sparked a trend. Rumor has it that Bryan Singer may simply call his Superman Returns sequel The Man of Steel.
• The film has had an extensive viral marketing campaign, which involved a full-scale scavenger hunt at the 2007 Comic-Con, fake Joker cakes and Gotham Times newspapers mailed to participants, and various intermingled web sites such as whysoserious.com and ibelieveinharveydent.com.
• Although Batman Begins cowriter David Goyer did not pen the Dark Knight script with Nolan (Nolan's brother, Jonathan, gets cowriting credit this time), Goyer and Nolan worked together to map out the film's premise.

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