WARNING: Minor spoilers about The Dark Knight might be contained in this article. Major spoilers might be contained in the comments. All spoilers you will have to highlight and I will mark them.

The Dark Knight has come and gone. I felt that it was a fantastic movie. Not just one of the best comic book movies out there, but one of the best movies of the last decade. It may be that we are all caught in the hype, but it did at least live up almost all expectations.

So, with the movie breaking box office records and the semi-cliffhanger ending, I think most people think its easy to say that they're at least going to make a third one. But, who will be the villains in this movie?

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With Heath Ledger passing away earlier this year, I don't think it would be a well received idea if they recast The Joker with how marvelous hisperformance was.
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So, who could they go with? The director and producer, Christopher Nolan, has wanted to create a realistic universe for our caped crusader. Unfortunately, many of Batman's villains can be quite cartoonish.

Well, let us go over some of the villains. I will start off with the two that I feel would make a good fit for the next movie, and we can go from there!

HUGO STRANGE - In the post-crisis continuity, Hugo Strange is a psychologist hired by the police to bring in Batman. He eventually figures out that Batman is Bruce Wayne, but he keeps that to himself and uses it as a weapon against Batman. He's also short, bald, and ugly. So, to make up for it, works out like crazy and is very muscular.

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With Batman running away from the police at the end of The Dark Knight, I think that Hugo would be the logicial villain.
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The Riddler - I feel that realistically, The Riddler could be portrayed in a non-cartoonish way, and make for a great potentially psychotic villain. Jim Carrey did a great job in Batman Forever (the movie itself sucked, but he was great). But, I feel that The Riddler deserves a good movie. I wouldn't cast Jim Carrey, only because I feel that the new Batman movies need to stay far way from Batman Forever and Batman & Robin as possible.

Mr. Freeze - Probably the most requested villain of all, but he may not fit within the realistic universe that Chns Nolan has created.

However, EmmyLouAngel and Boomer have brainstormed on how they can fit him in. This is what they have:

"Okay, one, he's a tragic villain, which they haven't had yet. The only reason he does anything horrible is because he's desperately seeking a way to save his wife and himself. Keep this in mind the entire time.

So instead of this big crazy suit and a Freeze gun, give him some weird self made (with help from Wayne Enterprise perhaps) medical chamber. Make him out to be in a wheel chair, connected to tubes and no one really knows what his illness is, or if they do make it out to be some weird form of a ailment that already exists. Something people could rationalize. Have him have frozen his wife. Heck, this could happen. Have him faked her death. Make him out to be this dying man.

Now give him an alter ego. Something else that hasn't really been brought to life in a Batman movie yet. Fake Dying man by day, excessive compulsive master mind scientist by night.

People are dying from some kind of virus in the streets. Perhaps. Or people have been dying from liquid nitrogen injections. This lending 'Mr. Freeze' to instead of using a freeze gun, he's using tranquilizers to either kill people via freezing them or perhaps spreading his virus to others who don't know how to treat it. This covers his way of going about his crimes. Without it being to cheesey and making it more realistic.

Maybe he's even more pure, thus being the opposite of the Joker. Maybe he only kills certain people in well thought out ways to get money. Something like robbing a bank via knocking people out or blinding them and only killing the security guard and using liquid nitrogen to break the lock. I love the idea of a villian who really doesn't want to hurt anyone.

Another way to do him, as Dave pointed out, was maybe he starts to kidnap people to experiment on in hopes of finding a cure.

Either way, I love the idea of him being a dying man that no one would suspect of doing these crimes. I also love the idea of Batman figuring it out, but not being able to say anything cause one, he's on the run and two, who would be believe him that this dying man is doing all these horrible things.

Boomer pointed out that his connection could be to Lucius Fox. Perhaps Lucius helped fund his old friend in figuring out a way to cure himself... or maybe for his medical bills."

The Penguin - Well, he is a bit cartoonish, but they could pull it off. Batman has crazy gadgets, so I think that they could the Umbrella thing, and they may have to make his figure more of those guys in than the Strong Man competitions more than so a Penguin, but it could be done.

Poison Ivy - While I totally think she would be hot on screen and the costume could be done, her powers are supernatural. I just don't think they could pull it off.

Catwoman - She has potential and with Rachel being gone, could create a huge personal conflict with Batman. The sexual tension alone is a big sell.

Bane - Bane actually wouldn't be too bad as long as they do some sort of variation of the Knightfall storyline and not the piece of shit treatment he got in Batman & Robin.

Hush - I know what some of you are thinking, "Who in the hell is Hush?" Well, he was recently featured in the Batman comics about 5 years ago. It created quite a compelling story.

Man-Bat

Clayface

RJ45