In a recent interview with Sci-Fi magazine, Jonathan Nolan shared his thoughts on possiblity of cluttering the plot with too many villians, as seen in "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen", "Watchmen", and "Spider-Man 3":
"Oh I don't believe in any of that s**t! Everybody is always looking for excuses as to why something worked and why something didn't work. Even The Dark Knight has three villains in it, or six, depending on how you're counting them. It is just a question of whether you can pull it off. That's what it comes down to. I think a narrative is only as cluttered as you let it be. And if you're looking for scope and scale...look at The Lord Of The Rings. Consider the number of characters in that. The number of different forces. And the different amount of allegiancies and betrayals. There are as many good films with half a dozen villians as there are bad ones. And I think that is a sort of facile thing to seize on as an explanation for "This is why this worked, and this is why this didn't work". Some of these things work because they're good, and some of these don't work because they're not. And I think if anyone had a formula for what makes one good, I would be very happy if they shared it with us, you know?"
Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ "The Dark Knight Rises" is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The screenplay is written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Charles Roven, who previously teamed on “Batman Begins” and the record-breaking blockbuster "The Dark Knight." The executive producers are Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Kevin De La Noy and Thomas Tull, with Jordan Goldberg serving as co-producer. The film is based upon characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by Bob Kane