Stealing a Fun Idea

I've been mostly M.I.A. for the past couple of weeks and by the look of things, will be for the next two weeks as well until my exams are over, with maybe a one-minute review popping up here and there just to stay in the game during that time. Therefore, for one, if I haven't commented on your blog posts or contributed in some way, I apologize. It's not that I'm not reading, I'm just not taking the time to think up meaningful ways to respond. With that I wanted to write a post that could get people talking so that I can simply watch what is being said and chime in from time to time in the comments section. So, here it is:


Do you read The Movie Snob? Well if not you probably should start. The other day he wrote a post about how the next Batman movie should be cast. Check it out here.

One of my suggestions would be to have Ethan Hawke play the Riddler, if that is truly to be the next villain. The reason for this is that, I think anyway, the best actor for the job will be the least expected.

When Jack Nicholson was cast as the Joker way back in the late 80s it made sense but the end result was simply Nicholson doing his usual thing but with face paint. When there were talks of who could potentially play the Joker in The Dark Knight Robin Williams is one of the people who made sense to me. He'd worked for Nolan before and he can play characters that are both dark and zany. But, like Nicholson, he was too much of an easy choice. I know big stars sometimes like to take on the role of villains so that they can dress up and act devious and go over the top but generally, when movie stars are cast in such roles, they tend to simply rely on their presence and phone it in.

Therefore, when Heath Ledger was announced as the actual Joker I scoffed only to realize, like everyone else, Ledger did the unimaginable: he went for broke and completely disappeared from the scene, creating a fully realized character. I thus realized that villains need to be played by actors not stars. I think Hawke is such an actor. It's been seen over the duration of his entire career that he is intelligent, versatile, and can play both dark and brooding while also zany and off-the-way. I threw around other names in the comment section at Movie Snob's post so check those out there.


So what do you think? Who should play the Riddler? Penguin? Catwoman? Poinson Ivy? Mr. Freeze? Who could work that Heath Ledger magic and create meaningful characters within these roles as opposed to the movie stars who played them in the past? Let's throw some ideas around.

While we are at it: who do you want to see as the new Spider-Man and who do you want to see as the villain and played by who? I'm curious to see how everyone weighs in.