Prior to the release of Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, the rumor mill was running rampant on how Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character might fit into the superhero-villain-heroine mix created by appearances from Batman, Bane, and Catwoman, respectively. While there are plenty of “normal” people in the Nolan trilogy (Commissioner Gordon and Alfred, among others) casting an up-and-comer like Levitt as an everyman police officerraised a few eyebrows and caused plenty of fan speculation. Would Levitt make an appearance as an unannounced villain (such as The Riddler) or possibly a superhero sidekick (such as Robin)?
Now that the film is out, we know that Levitt’s character, John Blake is Robin in both name and character, but as usual, Nolan wasn’t going to spell anything out. Despite a lot of carefully constructed arguments from the fan community about Blake’s post-Rises adventures, Joseph Gordon-Levitt recently confirmed that the filmmakers never talked about which “suit” (Batman, Nightwing, Robin, etc) the character would wear – when, and if, he actually took over for Bruce Wayne.
After the closing reveal of The Dark Knight Rises, many moviegoers (and media members), began hammering Levitt for answers about a possible sequel featuring the John Blake character. The actor quickly dismissed talk of a follow-up – claiming that the studio had not approached him about it and that, for him, reprising the role would be dependent on the quality of the script.
