We all want news on Batman 3. Is Nolan going to direct it? Is Cher going to play Catwoman? No matter how small the news is or how strange it may seem we can’t get enough tidbits about the next Batman film.

Well, Aaron Eckhart recently gave away some details about the chances of him coming back for a second time and Guy Pearce has also talked about him re-teaming with Nolan on a Batman film following their sterling work on Memento.

Be warned - There are major spoilers below if you are one of the three people left who still haven’t seen The Dark Knight.

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This is the first in a 3 part series covering the history of Batman.

Now that The Dark Knight has crossed the magic $500 million barrier at the US box office and grossed over $900 million worldwide, Batman is once again a true cultural phenomenon. It is perhaps now relevant and interesting to look at the history of the character to see how the he has had such an enduring appeal over the last 70 years.

Since his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 in May of 1939, Batman has become not only an iconic comic book character, but also a major character on television, radio, novels and of course, the big screen.

I know that people have asked why we don’t have a regular podcast here at Screen Rant. I made an attempt about a year ago to do a weekly podcast before we had a great stable of writers, and I found it extremely difficult to do alone.

So what about now, you ask? Now it’s an issue of time, or rather not enough of it, plus trying to coordinate a time that most of us can get together when we are located across the country (with Niall in the UK!).

I can’t believe that it’s now the end of August! Soon the winter blockbusters will be knocking at our door and the next thing you know it’ll be Oscar time again. Where does time go? Is it playing like a re-run somewhere, can you just flick to another dimension to a time where you are still awaiting a fourth Indiana Jones movie? Who knows, but I do know that it’s another Weekend Movie News Wrap up featuring a new aspect: a weekend box office update.

This week:

After our box office round-up we see what George Clooney and Jason Reitman are doing Up in the Air, we find out what former superhero is joining the Toy Story franchise, we look at who might be helming the Poltergeist movie and the Voltron film and what is new on the Inglorious Bastards casting front.

It’s almost September and that means that the big summer movie season of 2008 is finally over - but what a summer it’s been!

2008 delivered the kind of summer that superhero and action movie geeks dream of - this is the year that brought us three bonafide superhero movies: Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and what was that third one… oh yeah: The Dark Knight.

That is the question on everyone’s lips.

The man behind the second highest grossing film of all time (unadjusted) hasn’t signed on to direct a third installment yet, and The Dark Knight’s producer Charles Roven has said that nobody has even talked to Nolan yet because he is on vacation.

Roven said:

“There are a lot of us who emotionally would love to do it, but it’s really Chris’ call. Chris is the kind of filmmaker who just doesn’t think about the next movie before he has completely finished the movie he is working on. When he comes back, we will see how he feels.”

We thought it would be time for The Dark Knight’s box office update: As of its fifth weekend in release and one month after it debuted, the movie sits at nearly $471.5 million!  It passed Star Wars (including re-releases) this weekend, domestic box office-wise (not counting for inflation and higher ticket costs), and it looks like it’ll finish at Warner Bros.’ predicted $500 to $520 million domestic haul.

Seriously, I’m asking: will Tropic Thunder, the much-hyped comedy starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. (in black face, no less,) really have enough, well, thunder, to knock The Dark Knight out of its top spot at the box office on its one-month anniversary?

The Chicago Sun-Times recently spoke with the Iron Man star and managed to pry some details about the sequel to the hit film out of him; Movie Hole also asked Downey about Iron Man 2 and got more than they bargained for when the actor went on a tirade, slamming DC Comics and the runaway success of The Dark Knight.

Wow, what a crazy combination of fans. Take Joss Whedon and his Joss-Verse fan craze and combine that with the Batman fan following and I think we would have seen quite an explosion across both worlds.

Before Christopher Nolan got the nod to reboot the Batman mythos, Joss Whedon had pitched his own idea for the next film for the Caped Crusader to Warner Bros!