"The Dark Knight Rises" cast confusion
Late Friday night, Warner Bros. confirmed what had been rumored for months: that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would become the second "Inception" star to appear in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises." What we didn't know then, and what broke over the weekend, is who Gordon-Levitt is playing: According to Variety, he's going to be Alberto Falcone, the son of crime lord Carmine Falcone, portrayed in "Batman Begins" by Tom Wilkinson.
Levitt's casting gives the following confirmed actors and characters:
*** Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman.
*** Michael Caine as Alfred.
*** Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon.
*** Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.
*** Tom Hardy as Bane.
*** Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman.
*** Juno Temple as "street-smart Gotham gal."
*** Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Alberto Falcone.
There are still rumors out there about Marion Cotilliard, and you can probably count on Cillian Murphy having a cameo as Scarecrow again, because why not?
That's a lot of characters, and a lot of bad guys. We've already told you about Catwoman and Bane, but who, exactly, is Alberto Falcone?
Falcone is not a common character in the Batman DC Universe; according to the DC Wiki, he only appears in two sets of comics. But one of those -- and the one Nolan is likely drawing from -- is one called "The Long Halloween."
This is one of the more famous Batman comics, one that Nolan cites as one of his favorites and the one he (sort of) borrowed the origin story for Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight." It's not the exact same origin story, so if you read "The Long Halloween" before seeing "The Dark Knight," you wouldn't have had the story ruined for you ... but it's close enough that we feel obliged to give a big SPOILER WARNING before we tell you Alberto Falcone's storylne in that comic.
OK, we good? So, here's Alberto Falcone's story:
During an otherwise peaceful time in Gotham, someone is murdering criminals. More specifically, members of the Carmine crime family. Carmine -- who was last seen at the end of "Batman Begins" jabbering insanely in his cell after being attacked by Scarecrow -- employs all kinds of maniacs to find out the identity of this killer, who goes by the name "Holiday." But Holiday kills them all, including Carmine's sister and, seemingly, Alberto Falcone, his son.
As it turns out, though, Holiday was Alberto all along; he's a Harvard-educated reverse-black-sheep of the Falcone family who committed the murders to break away from his demanding father. Alberto is a fancy-pants psychotic academic who, like so many fictional characters before him (including Bruce Wayne), is just trying to live up to his father's legacy.
Obviously, Nolan is going to take his own liberties with the character and the story, but that's who Alberto Falcone is, in the comics. That's all anyone knows, at this point.
Now Entertainment Weekly is saying Variety is incorrect. While Joseph Gordon-Levitt has a role, the magazine says it's not Alberto Falcone. Let the speculation start again.
