JimK:  So the big rumor floating around last week was that Angelina Jolie, uberbabe, wanted Catwoman, which is fine, but sort of standard “sexy babe plays sexy villainess” to be honest.  I don’t know that we need another new actor in the series in a major role, nor does Jolie need yet another iconic role on her resume.  This is coming from a guy that thinks Angelina Jolie might be the sexiest woman on earth, as long as she’s eating a few sandwiches and doesn’t look like a malnourished stick.

This week’s rumor is that we already know Catwoman, and it’s Rachel Dawes.  I have to admit, as much as I didn’t like Maggie Gyllenhaal taking over the part from Katie Holmes, this idea is genius, brilliant, thematically sound, feels organic and is, in short, perfect.

The rest of this post contains Spoilers for The Dark Knight, so, you know, SPOILER WARNING!

Having just watched the movie again last night with this idea in my mind, it so completely works.  The scene where Rachel dies supports the concept of her surviving for any number of reasons.  We never see a body.  We don’t even see the explosion happen anywhere near her.  The first fireball takes place way, way at the back of the room and then it cuts to an exterior shot of the building exploding.  I say it is 100% plausible that Joker left a henchman or two to pull her out at the last moment.

On the other hand, it is equally as plausible that she survives for no reason whatsoever.  Just a fluke, a freak occurrence that left her dazed for a bit as she wandered away from the back side of the explosion.  This is a grounded, realistic way to give us the notion that she believes she has nine lives (so to speak).

Either way, or in some entire other not-yet-thought-of way, she gets mad at Bruce for choosing Dent.  She acted all brave there at the end, but the trauma of almost dying, and then having to know that the man who allegedly loves you and has known you all your life choose to save a DA he just met?  That could make a person crazy.  She doesn’t know that the Joker lied and flipped the addresses.  All she knows is Bruce didn’t choose her.  As Catwoman she’ll be able to pull off that whole “I love you/I hate you” conflict that rages through their relationship.  Gyllenhaal can act, and having her be under a Catwoman mask will hide most of the miserable, sad-sack thing she does with her face 90% of the time.  She can look great in a bodysuit and we know she can slink around...just rent Secretary if you need proof.  As long as she isn’t standing there all mopey and frowny, she’ll do just fine.  She can act, and maybe giving her some actual meat to chew on in the form of some interesting things to say and do will bring more of that out of her.  The Nolan brothers short-changed Rachel Dawes in this script...maybe that was intentional?

Thematically it creates the perfect setup for this movie universe.  Everything in this film has layers of duality, and the obvious conflicts in her will be her love/hate for Bruce/Batman, and her love/blame for/at Harvey/Two Face.  She’s the pivot point for the conflict between both sides of both men, and written properly she can be a complete person with conflicts of her own...her sense of right and wrong as Rachel versus her (hopefully) compulsion to steal as Catwoman springs to mind.  The Nolans are using some specific Batman books as sort of reference material (a post or posts about that is/are coming later this week), an if this rumor is true, then I predict some examples of Catwoman helping Batman against who I assume will be Dent and whatever remains of the mob.  Just as quickly as she helps, she’ll turn on him...probably flipping between Dent and Wayne as heroine and villainess just like she did as a girlfriend (emotionally I mean, as it was never stated that she cheated on Dent in TDK)

And it’s all the Joker’s fault, so while we can’t have any more Heath, they can talk about the impact his character has, and so the performance lives on.

I’m 100% solidly behind this as a potential storyline for the third Nolan Batmovie.  I think they would do it right, well and with great emotional depth and integrity.  It’s logical to thsi world.  It feels right.  If there is any justice in this indecent time, may the Nolan brothers somehow find this blog post and see how perfect this is.

JimK:  Problem solved.  It came to me when I was finishing up another Dark Knight-related post.  I mean, in theory the problem is solved.  In reality Maggie Gyllenhaal is playing whatever part she may have in the third film, but in a perfect world here’s how we do it.

Maggie plays Rachel as she survives, but she’s all fucked up.  She needs massive amounts of plastic surgery.  Who the hell knows how she pays for it all...Joker set her up with some money maybe.  She comes back as a totally different person (and a new actress) named Selena Kyle who captivates Bruce because she’s Rachel inside and WAY hot outside.  Bang!  Perfect solution.  Maggie gets to get closure on her role as a mopey drag and we could conceivably fit someone like Beckinsale (or Jolie) into the movie and it would feel organic and natural.

Make it happen, Nolans.