If you haven’t heard, Warner Bros. Pic­tures announced yes­ter­day that Anne Hath­away would play Cat­woman and Tom Hardy would play Bane in Chris Nolan’s next Bat­man movie, The Dark Knight Rises.

I dunno how this strikes you, but it’s kinda a big deal in the comic/​movie nerd-​dom. The Anne Hath­away bit is get­ting a lot of atten­tion in par­tic­u­lar, but I think both parts are impor­tant — espe­cially as the first offi­cial word about the new movie.

Since Dark Knight came out in 2008, the rumor mill/​fan wish­list has been churn­ing out new stuff all the time. First it was Kris­ten Bell as Harley Quinn, Mar­ion Cotil­lard as Cat­woman, Johnny Depp as Rid­dler, and Anne Hath­away as Bat­girl. Then Harley was out since there would be no Joker. Then Heath Ledger’s Joker would be briefly in with either unused footage or CGI, and the impli­ca­tion that Harley could be in again. Then Mar­ion Cotil­lard was out as Cat­woman. Then Johnny Depp was out, but Joseph Gordon-​Levitt might be tak­ing on Rid­dler. Then Tom Hardy was attached for an unknown role. Then Tom Hardy was Dr. Hugo Strange. Then Cat­woman could be any of sev­eral women, includ­ing Megan Fox, Eva Green, Naomi Watts, Keira Knight­ley, Anne Hath­away, Jes­sica Biel, Kate Mara, Char­lotte Riley, and Gemma Arter­ton. I’m sure that’s not in the right order and that there’s plenty more that I missed. This is just rumors that were big enough to be reported and I hap­pened to read them and recall them as I write this. With all that crazi­ness, a bit of clar­ity and focus is good, even if some fans feel their wish­list cast­ings were better.

First, my thoughts on Tom Hardy as Bane: it was def­i­nitely a sur­prise. How­ever, not as bad as other peo­ple have taken it. Bane is a rel­a­tively newer mem­ber of Batman’s Rogues’ Gallery, and for some of my friends, their only expo­sure to him was a brain­less min­ion of Poi­son Ivy’s in the Bat­man & Robin travesty.

In the comics, he was born and raised in a Caribbean prison, forced by the cor­rupt gov­ern­ment to live out his rev­o­lu­tion­ary father’s life sen­tence after his father had escaped the government’s reaches. In prison, he built his body and learned quickly about all top­ics from books and other inmates, includ­ing a priest who taught him the clas­sics. He also grew ruth­less in prison, becom­ing the “king” of Pena Dura. The prison staff try to take him down by forc­ing him to do drug tri­als of “Venom,” which has killed every­one before­hand. Bane sur­vives the drug, though, and finds that it makes him stronger. He mas­ter­minds an escape from prison and go to Gotham, which he sees as a big­ger prison, and aims to unseat Bat­man and become “king” there. He frees the worst of the worst from Arkham Asy­lum to wear down Bat­man, then fig­ures out his iden­tity, sneaks into the Bat­cave, and breaks Bruce Wayne’s back.

I under­stand that Nolan’s Bane will have an Amer­i­can mil­i­tary back­ground instead of a Caribbean prison one. This def­i­nitely works for the phys­i­cal train­ing and the Venom, but I’m not sure how the edu­ca­tion, ruth­less­ness, and moti­va­tion for tar­get­ing Bat­man will work out. It can be done, though. My big­ger con­cern is just how well Bane fits into Nolan’s Gotham. H’s def­i­nitely a gritty real vil­lain, but he plays a slow game, wait­ing months for the other vil­lains to wear Bat­man down after the Arkham break­out. Are they going to have lots of cameos for a Batman-​gets-​tired mon­tage? Maybe Bane will find another way to lower Batman’s guard. Per­haps my biggest con­cern is how the movie will end. Nolan’s con­tract is for three movies, with an option for a fourth, but he does not seem to be inter­ested in exer­cis­ing that option. Will he take the “Man Who Broke The Bat” moment away from Bane? That’s kinda #1 in Bane’s high­light reel. But if Bane does man­age to do this, how does Bat­man “win” ? In the comics, he had some­one else take his place until he got healed by meta-​human pow­ers, which def­i­nitely does not fit in Nolan’s Gotham. (And as a side note, I won­der if Bane will even fig­ure out Bruce’s iden­tity and attack him in the Bat­cave, since the Bat­cave was destroyed at the end of Bat­man Begins and was not rebuilt in Dark Knight.)

As for Anne Hath­away as Cat­woman… it could go either way for me. I think Mar­ion Cotil­lard looked more the part, but hey, Hol­ly­wood can do some crazy shit. And Catwoman’s had a lot of dif­fer­ent looks on the screen and off. As Vince T showed on my Face­book wall, Anne Hathaway’s got the sex appeal down. I’m a bit con­cerned about the action sequences, but that’s what stunt dou­bles are for, and her face will be cov­ered. My biggest gripe about this cast­ing is that I have a hard time see­ing chem­istry between her and Chris­t­ian Bale. Partly because of the age thing, but eight years’ dif­fer­ence is still a lot bet­ter than the twenty-​year gap she faced with Steve Car­rell in Get Smart. (Some parts of that were bor­der­line creepy, saved only by Steve Carrell/​Max Smart’s child­ish­ness.) But moreso because of the com­plex Catwoman/​Batman rela­tion­ship, and how Anne Hath­away has always been type­cast as an ingénue, at least in my mind.

So, what are your thoughts on this news?