There's been a lot of Dark Knight action in the last 24 hours or so. Flash mobs, teaser trailers, stills and chat. The still is below and you can either stream or download the trailer from an official site, but the flash mobs, well, if you want one now, you'll have to organise your own.
So, sadly, the Michel Gondry/Believe it or Not story appears to be a dead end. MTV approached Gondry's publicist and they denied he had any involvement. Truth be told, I wouldn't have any idea how to reach Michel's publicist, or I would have fired off an e-mail in the first place.
Now, if you're still feeling hopeful, cling on to this: he may be in talks and the publicist is playing semantic games to sidestep the issue. But I don't know why they'd issue a denial if he was. That'd be silly. Are you listening, Shia LaBouef?
I'm actually rather disappointed by this and so is my source.
He and I agree, though: somewhere along the line, something was going on and getting spoken about in Gondry circles.
I Googled about and found two corroborating reports - one of which actually turned out to be the IMDB pages for the film and director. Now, it is possible that my source's source was part of a chain that led to the news going up on Gondry's IMDB page, or, unfortunately, it is also possible that the IMDB page was the original source overall.
Ah, the IMDB. There's nothing like a nice reliable movie database with which to check your facts - and (hold your sides, they're going to split) the IMDB is nothing like a nice reliable movie database with which to check your facts. Which is why, generally, I don't have much to do with it.
The other report was on a Russian website. Hmmm. Possibly even less reliable than the IMDB? That's the reputatuon they have anyway.
I'm sad, but the story was nice while it lasted. It gave the Ripley movie a glimmer of hope. Now we can all divert our attentions back to the Blondie movie Michel has been developing, and hope and pray that, for some reason, Kirsten Dunst has to pull out and, say, Maggie Gyllenhaal has to step in.
Variety sez: Maggie Gyllenhaal's character in The Dark Knight is indeed Rachel Dawes, the self same character that was played by Katie Holmes in the last film.
Well, blow me down with a batfeather - I didn't think they'd need to preserve the identity of such a flatly written cypher. I thought they'd just rename the part, make it a new girl and be done with it. There must be some plot reason, surely? let the speculation begin!
Gyllenhaal's involvement was rumoured a while earlier, this anouncement of her signing is the first official word. Shame she didn't have anything better to do.
Reuters sez: Maggie Gyllenhaal, presenter of the technical Oscars ceremony this last Saturday night, received a rapturous round of applause for correctly pronouncing the word densitometer. I witnessed something similar in a screening of Elizabethtown when Kirsten Dunst nailed Lousville - and to think that people tease me for giving the Langley sequence in Mission: Impossible a standing ovation.
