In a business setting, there are two seperate ways Warner Bros. can go with this Batman film franchise... for one, they could do Batman 3, which everyone has been clammering for ever since The Dark Knight and would seemingly be the best decision to do at this point. But then again, The Dark Knight can arguably be considered a great ending to the Nolan films, and Warner Bros. could just reboot the films and start from scratch.
As many of us all know, Christopher Nolan is a director that wont take crap and when he directs a movie, boy he will direct it wherever he wants it too go through his vision no matter what everyone else thinks. For instance, the fact that Nolan wont let his realistic Batman take part with the more unrealistic heroes such as Green Lantern, and even Superman, and Nolan is going to be behind the upcoming Superman right now.
I dont know, but that just shows he really could not give a crap that Batman should belong among these other heroes, as we all know he should based on the comic books.
One of the major problems with Nolan in this respect, is that Warner Bros. is the studio and can just fire him. At this point, it seems like Nolan wont take any requests from Warner Bros. - just his own personal wants.
See, Warner Bros. has reportedly been optimistic that The Joker should take part in Batman 3, but of course with Christopher Nolan still pressed on Heath Ledger's death, there is no way in hell Nolan would bring The Joker back in his films - per his confirmation that he wont be bringing The Joker back.
But for a big studio like Warner Bros., that is really for the most part trying to raise money, would look at that as foolishness considering how big The Joker has become.
Most people would be fine with Nolan's intent of not bring Joker back, as I am, because of course many of us really respect Heath's take and at least we will get to see another villain introduced as fresh blood in the franchise, and also another actor replacing Heath in the role would seem pretty disrespectful... even though Heath would probably have pushed for someone to carry on his role.
Keep in mind, I am really only referring to the idea of an actor actually replacing The Joker in Nolan's continuity, if they rebooted the films I would be all for The Joker being around.
Honestly, being that Batman 3 is going to be a major cash cow obviously, Warner Bros. is going to be all over this film once they see something Nolan wants to do and they dont agree with it, just watch - Warners and Nolan are both going to get into major disagreements and Warner Bros. will just scrap it, wait, and reboot it in a few years with a director that we have never heard of.
The fact that Batman 3 also does not seem to be going forward at all, aside from having a release date apparently, seems like there could be problems going on.
This is just a theory, but it at least seems to me that whenever you have a project as big as the sequel to The Dark Knight, trouble is just around the corner for it... Batman 3 should be released on July 20, 2012.